WELLFLEET — Most chickens on the Outer Cape are, like the rest of us, among the fortunate on this Earth. Instead of inhabiting large-production poultry farms, our backyard babies live […]
On the Landscape
PLANTCRAFT
Goldenrod for a September Salve
Longer nights call forth flowers the color of autumn light
September, the golden month on Cape Cod. Sunrises and sunsets that linger in the mind’s eye with color and light. Solidago sempervirens, seaside goldenrod, is just beginning to open at […]
HOMESTEADING
Those Chicks You Got in April Will Be Laying Soon
If your adolescent chicken starts to crow, you’ve won the pullet surprise
When we became backyard chicken farmers five years ago, I had oodles of enthusiasm, but very little actual knowledge of chickens. I didn’t know, for example, that our six brand-new […]
PLANTCRAFT
Plant Matter to Dye For
Mix solar rays and garden clippings for earthy fabric hues
Solar dyeing starts with a gathering: deadheaded blooms, freshly unfurled petals, bright green leaves. Dyer’s Coreopsis, Queen Anne’s lace, and Rudbeckia. My garden shears make quick work of the task. […]
GROWING SEASON
Farmers Markets Are Back, for Food and Connection
Pre-ordering online helps with needed distancing
After a pre-season full of uncertainty and adjustment, welcome seeds of normalcy are sprouting at the Provincetown and Truro farmers markets, though at both, new restrictions and guidelines have reconfigured […]
ON THE LANDSCAPE
Finding the Woods on a Search for a Bird
Following a hermit thrush call, an encounter with mystery
There is a little bird that lives in the woods. It nests low to the ground, at the edges of clearings. It is about the size of a sparrow. The […]
ON THE LANDSCAPE
Beyond the Lawn
Rethinking America’s most wonderful, ridiculous monoculture
The lawn. A tightly cropped, cleanly edged area of neat green. An outdoor carpet for lying on and looking at. A lawn is deeply ingrained in our culture as an […]
RESILIENCE
It’s Good to Garden Now
Local suppliers are finding new ways to make sheltering better for us all
TRURO — For the people who grow vegetables and manicure lawns, it’s definitely not a garden variety spring, as the coronavirus closes retail garden centers and seed catalogs are selling […]
ON THE LANDSCAPE
Pruning Is a Good Thing
Purposeful cuts are an act of rejuvenation
Hacking. Butchering. Murdering. These are all terms we hear when the subject of pruning comes up. These words betray a widely held belief that pruning is an act of brutality. […]
ON THE LANDSCAPE
The Zen of Moss
Vibrant magic in the gray winter woods
The woods are a thousand tans, reds, and browns. Furrowed bark every shade of charcoal. Snowfall in the woods, in the low winter light, a cast of blue. The muted […]
FARM AND GARDEN
Sal Del Deo’s Garden and Its Bountiful Memories
It’s a piece of the Old World in Provincetown
Salvatore Del Deo sits in his kitchen on a snowy December afternoon, holding a jar of dried beans. “My favorites of all the favorites,” he says, holding them up to […]
ON THE LANDSCAPE
Structure and Shape in the Winter Garden
Reminders of the bones required to support summer’s softer beauty
I used to rent a small house with large windows. The windows overlooked a meadow of grasses and wildflowers framed at its edges by low oaks and autumn olive. In […]
HOLIDAY TABLE
Ecoprinting: Natural Dyes From Leaves and Flowers
Dyeing is a multi-step process. The first step is a visit with nature.
Even in these chilly gray days of November we find color everywhere on the Outer Cape. Marsh and beach grasses are golden fire. Junipers are deep green, their bright berries […]
ON THE LANDSCAPE
The Rewards of Caring for House Plants
The basics are simple: soil, water, light, nutrients, and love
Frost etches the margins of the grass in the early morning. You can see your breath when you step outside at night. The bin of winter clothing has been pulled […]
on the landscape
The Grasses Tell Us to Be Quiet
Plants to create spaces that borrow from the textures of woods, fields, and dunes
Shhhhhhhh. The wind is given voice by the grass. The wind has no sound if not for the things it passes through, around, within. It is not the sound of […]
