If you’ve spent any time on the Outer Cape, you know that birds are a thing. They make the news here, with people calling in their sightings for a weekly […]
Farm & Garden
What would it look like to grow, harvest, and protect our bounty?
Browse all Farm & Garden stories below or dive into a topic:
BACK TO THE GARDEN
Watering, Deeply
Guiding roots where they need to go to sustain the plant’s life — and your own
Our summers have been marked by significant dry spells for the last few years, and sometimes two or three weeks pass without a drop of rain. When these hot, dry […]
BACK TO THE GARDEN
It’s Time for Tomatoes and the Stories They Inspire
Plant your seedlings deep, give them sun and heat, and breathe in their aroma
Everyone has a story about tomatoes. They are plants of family, of memories, of passed-down secrets, like old recipes. Whenever tomato growing comes up, there is nearly always a personal […]
BACK TO THE GARDEN
Designing a Planter That Packs a Punch
How to play with elements of garden design that satisfy on a small scale
One of the things we humans like to do is to bring little chunks of nature into our immediate surroundings. This is what gardens are, and houseplants, too. We enjoy […]
DIRT
Vegan Mud Pies in a Hobbit-Inspired Kitchen Near an Edible Forest
Cape Cod Tech and Nauset High students help revamp a library’s gardens
TRURO — This summer, when the “mud kitchen” behind the Truro Public Library is open for business, Leela Okeanos, who just turned six, plans on making vegan mud pies. The […]
BACKYARD FARM
Saying Goodbye to Buttercup
Our beloved doe and her sister find happiness in Brewster
Buttercup was not born in our back yard, but she was the kid that made me a goat mama. She and her sister came to us from another small farm […]
ON THE LANDSCAPE
At Dusk With the Peepers
Listening to the sound of spring in a vernal pool come to life
It happens one night in early April. The air is warm, softened, the hard edges of winter worn away by gentle rain. In the woods, a sound that had almost […]
MEET THE MAKER
How to Become a Curd Nerd
A backyard farmer follows a goatherd from pasture to kitchen
Sadie Hill added two Nigerian dwarf dairy goats to her small farm in Brewster in 2015. Her plan was to show them in competitions and breed them to develop a […]
BACKYARD FARM
Finding Room for a Few Spring Chickens
Plain or fancy, new birds are to bond with
All of a sudden, I’m seeing tiny buds on every branch. This sign of spring sends my vegetable-growing friends into expanding their garden beds. For chicken farmers like me, the […]
BACKYARD FARM
The Free Range Conundrum
Featherfoot Freckles makes a narrow escape from a Cooper’s hawk
When we started keeping chickens, we kept them in a fortress-like coop with a luxuriously large, protected run. I didn’t want our hens to be deprived of space. But I […]
METAPHYSICS
Winter Sunsets
In the evening light reflected by sky and water, a glimpse of the universe, and of ourselves
Every evening, just before dark, a miracle occurs. You can go see it, and each time you do, it will be infinitely different from the last time you watched it. […]
BACKYARD FARM
Early Warnings and Oatmeal Afterwards
Buttercup, Lance, and the ladies weather the Blizzard of ’22
Before weather reports bombarded us with storm tracking, our predecessors would observe their flocks or herds for changes in their behavior, noticing telltale signs that storms were on the way. […]
BACKYARD FARM
How to Keep Your Goats From Going South in the Winter
No need for winter coats, as goats grow their own
We were still new to goat herding when the first icy storm of 2019 blew in. I felt sure our Nigerian Dwarf herd could not survive it outdoors and insisted […]
BACKYARD FARM
Sergeant Major Spruce, the Christmas Goose
What’s good for the gander is good for the whole farm
If our backyard farm were in my home country of Austria, we’d be trussing up a plump goose for our Christmas feast right about now. But here we are in […]
ON THE LANDSCAPE
A Eulogy for 2 Truro Trees Felled by Nor’easter
The Siberian elm and silver maple were neighbors on Shore Road
TRURO — In the early morning hours of Oct. 27, the night of the recent nor’easter, a tremendous gust of wind came swooping down over the ocean, across the tops […]
