Category: How-To Projects

Erin Benzakein, founder of Floret, is one of the original farmer-florists. On her farm in Washington's Skagit Valley, she and her family have created a thriving flower farm, design studio and learning center. Her workshops are soldout affairs, created for those who want to learn more about small scale, high intensity flower production and floral design. We asked Erin…

In one of the classes I took at the NY Botanical Garden I learned about the container gardening concept of "Thriller, Filler, Spiller". When you're selecting plants for your container, the Thriller is the central plant that grows taller than the others and is the focal point. The Filler is the plant or plants that surround the Thriller, and the Spiller is the plant that spills over the edges of your container. I followed this concept with the container I…

Hypertufa containers offer the perfect environment for succulents and alpine plants. They're porous and provide a good vessel for the arid, fast draining soil required by these types of plants. They also have an unmistakable charm if you're a pushover for anything made of stone or resembling stone! What is hypertufa? Hypertufa is a manufactured substitute for natural tufa, which is a slowly precipitated limestone rock. Hypertufa is a man-made rock composed of various…

For two years in a row our local land trust has sponsored a milkweed giveaway at our local farmers market. The momentum has grown and this year we had an eager crowd of friends and neighbors waiting to receive their plants. In addition, there were plenty more who did not yet know the value of milkweed and were delighted to learn they could make a contribution to improving our local ecosystem! We contacted two sources for our milkweed plants this…

The Early Spring issue of Country Gardens with a feature story on our greenhouse also has an interesting story about growing microgreens. Here's a link to the Country Gardens website with How To information on growing microgreens. I started 3 crops myself, using 3 handmade plates by the talented Vermont potter Amanda Ann Palmer. Because microgreens are harvested a couple of weeks after the seeds are sown, a shallow dish with no holes for drainage is perfectly acceptable. [caption id="attachment_2262" align="alignleft"…

Forcing bulbs to bloom indoors in late Winter is a way to enjoy the magic of Spring flowers a little early. If you received a free package of our pink Foxtrot tulip bulbs, they are ready to be potted up indoors as soon as you get them. This is because they have spent the winter in a cool warehouse in Pennsylvania. (For other Spring blooming bulbs, you need to put them in a cool, refrigerated location for 6-8 weeks before…

Elizabeth Buchtman works at Womanswork, and on weekends she's been making and decorating holiday wreaths with Stephen Chamberlain of Dutchess Farm in Castleton, VT. She agreed to share her secret with us for producing festive bows for her holiday wreaths. Step One: Get your supplies lined up. This includes ribbon (3 in. wide with wire edges), a spool of wire, sharp scissors, and her Womanswork pocket stone to keep her scissors at peak performance for cutting the ends of the bow. Step Two:…

Here are 10 of our favorite tabletop ideas for Thanksgiving, using plants and fruits. For how-to instructions, click here to go to the Womanswork Pinterest board. Click on individual images to be taken to their source. Erin Boyle, Gardenista (click on photo…

In Vermont they take their wood piles seriously. Last winter my son-in-law Nate built the holz hausen shown here at Eve and Nate's house outside of Woodstock, VT. Typically he stacks their wood in a long straight woodpile (also visible in photo), and finds it to be meditative work. Last year after building the straight wall he found that he still had a pretty sizeable amount of wood left that wasn't going to fit, so he decided to try something…

I visited the farm, Dingle Hill Flowers & Herbs, on a sultry August day, my car bumping up a hilly, mile-long stretch of gravel road leading to the former dairy farm, now herb sanctuary, in the Catskill Mountains of NY.  Finally I took a sharp turn and headed towards the main farmhouse and the "Heart" of the enterprise, where I met owners Daphne Boss Ayalon and her husband Jerome. Liz Scholl, Womanswork's master herbalist, who sources herbs from Daphne for our…