Putting the fall garden to bed with spring dreams
Fall foliage color has peaked, and leaves are falling. Temperatures are dropping, and it’s time to put the garden to bed.
Fall foliage color has peaked, and leaves are falling. Temperatures are dropping, and it’s time to put the garden to bed.
From August to November, the members of Putney Mountain Hawkwatch stand on the summit of their namesake spotting and surveying migrating raptors.
In late October, trails committee members and other volunteers repaired damage to the Town Link Trail caused by the July storms.
Near where the Missisquoi River meets Lake Champlain sits a large grassland where open fields meld with shallows and long grass peeks out of the water as far as the eye can see. On a Sunday in September, as the grass hissed in the wind, a small group pieced together tarps and tents there for the nights to come.
Lewis Creek Association has nearly completed the conversion of a playing field behind the United Church of Hinesburg back to a wetland.
Fall foliage color has peaked, and leaves are falling. Temperatures are dropping, and it’s time to put the garden to bed. It is also a perfect opportunity to prepare for spring. What you do this fall can provide big benefits when the garden wakes up next year.
We’ve probably all run out to the garden on a fall evening as the temperature drops and a frost warning is issued.
resh garlic from your garden is hard to beat, and now is the time to get it started for next year.
The north wind is whistling through the tiny crack in the window frame in my bedroom. My eyes are still open. I am trying to fall asleep.
Each time I visit Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Park in Woodstock, I come away smiling.
In Hinesburg, a major development proposal that failed to win an Act 250 permit last spring due to its anticipated impact on the local floodplain could soon move forward after modifications. Critics of the project say that the handful of Charlotte families who live on the banks of the LaPlatte River may have cause for apprehension.
Research shows that spending time in nature enhances our physical and mental well-being, so it’s no surprise that gardening offers similar benefits, including reducing stress, anxiety and negative thoughts.
Each fall, Mt. Philo attracts many migrating hawks and eagles, as they fly south for the winter.
Autumn colors have started to paint the landscape. As beautiful as those reds, oranges and yellows are, many gardeners tend to focus too much on the formerly green perennials that are now a crispy brown.
Magnolia scale (Neolecanium cornuparvum) is a soft scale insect that attacks only magnolia trees, including the popular star magnolia (Magnolia stellata) and saucer magnolia (Magnolia x soulangiana).
Have you noticed the light is changing and the sun has moved a good way to the south?
Rather than leaving a field or patch of soil open over the winter, consider cover crops. A cover crop is basically a temporary seeding of an area that would otherwise have exposed soil. The crop is a placeholder for future crops that will be grown there.
While Charlotte has made great strides to conserve farmland through land trusts, our town has a lot of work left to do to protect vital forest land.
In early September, Charlotte Trails Committee members Jack Pilla and Chris Boffa finished building a new bridge on the mowed path along Ferry Road to replace one that had been damaged repeatedly by flooding — most recently in July.
The unusual temperatures of September have prolonged the haying season as well as allowing gardens to flush a third round of lettuce, radishes and cilantro just in time for the last ripe tomatoes and a flourish of salsa-based meals.