Welcome to early mid-Winter at the Good Earth!

And – we’re starting to dream of spring!

Well – we’re almost through the January thaw – with a sharp return to winter just ahead – hope you got your Wilt-pruf on to help with the on-going drought stress (we’re still listed in drought on the Mass. drought monitor - https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?MA) and late winter/early spring stressors are coming…

And – to make it easier to ‘weather’ the return to winter, we’ve just brought in a nice selection of new – GREEN AND HEALTHY – houseplants.  And we’re happy to walk you through what could work best for you. 

The other good thing about mid-winter is that it does provide time (even if only a little bit!!) to think a bit.  I know there’s A LOT going on nationally and internationally (and – PLEASE – stay aware!) but, personally, I’ve always tried to act locally because that’s where my experience and energy are.  New England > Massachusetts > Worcester County > and the north central hills and upland (where we all actually live) all have their geological, ecological, cultural and economical specifics.  Ask anyone in the Connecticut River Valley or Cape Cod what the issues are of the north central upland, and they haven’t got a clue!!!  We’re not so great at knowing their issues either so it’s totally a two-way street.

You know the store supports local economy and both hosts and supports sales for a whole group of local vendors.  We’re proud to be part of the Country Roads Holiday tour and actively work with some local teachers and non-profits towards healthy ecologies in different venues.  Some of us are involved in local town commissions and boards supporting different aspects of town life.

One thought for everyone…find a local cause, group, board, commission, committee or non-profit that appeals to you – AND GET INVOLVED!!!! Put YOUR energy into the local scene. Act like a healthy plant!! (Healthy plants pump up to 60% of their sugar [energy] production down in to the soil to create a healthy community around their roots – so BE a plant!!!) Yes, it’s an additional time commitment -and yes, you may be working with some people that you might not hang out with in any other venue – SO WHAT!!!!  That’s what it takes to create viable, functional communities.  It’s the inherent diversity in mixed human endeavors that moves a project forward…just like it’s the diversity around a plant’s root system that allows it to grow and thrive.

And that allows a perfect segue into diversity in all of its glory!!  I know it’s a word in disrepute at the moment, but that’s a current cultural reality (and therefore a completely human assessment and not from all humans at that!!!) not a biological reality.

There are real reasons to look into and understand DIVERSITY and the ability of many to work, share space and PROSPER in a shared environment…and that complexity is what creates stability.  Diversity is present in healthy soils, healthy plants, healthy animals, healthy farms and healthy forests.  There is a HUGE amount of information on every one of those points.  Don’t worry – I’m not going to drown you in it!!  But – I do want you to be aware of it.  These concepts will be wound through the newsletters for this coming year because it is SO important to understand that complexity is NOT the enemy – it’s the stabilizer in the wider world…

And that creates the next segue – into our first workshop for the season…The Joys of Seed and Plant Catalogs, 1/24 – 1:00-2:00 This is both a celebration of and a conversation about the true visual candy of the gardening world!!!  And it’s where diversity is (almost) always seen as a good thing.  I’ll bring my catalogs – you bring yours and we’ll all talk varieties new and old, what they can do (or not do!) and how to use the catalogs as the resource that they can be…so MUCH BETTER than just hunting on line!  So, come, dream, ask questions and have a great conversation!

We do have two other winter programs on the calendar; Getting Seeds Started Right on 2/7 and Terrariums and Fairy Gardens on 2/14.  More on those in the next newsletter…

The value of problems – and experimentation!! It’s about YOU!!!

I was (and am) incredibly lucky to have a wickedly diverse and farm-based background.  My brothers and sister and I grew up with all kinds of animals, including a dairy goat herd.  I thought I’d become a vet – until I got awful teachers in the animal sciences and really good teachers in the plant sciences so I listened to the universe and switched gears.  Worked in a garden center with a completely conventional approach to plants for 7 years. Learned all the basics of annuals, perennials, woodies, etc., some basic design and some basic landscape maintenance (the classic 4 step program, Miracle-gro and 10-10-10). Thought I was hot stuff – amazing in hind sight! This seemed to work just fine as long as I was working there…

Then I went out on my own in 1990 and the best thing that happened to me is that one of my first clients had an incredibly tricky garden that wasn’t performing no matter how much Miracle-gro or 10-10-10 was used. I knew the landscaper she was firing – and he was happy to be fired (!) and he told me what he’d been doing – and that was all I knew how to do too!… and it wasn’t working!… That was the first step on a very long road of learning about soils and minerals, carbon and energy, plant diversity, soil diversity and real working garden designs.

Over the years, I’ve worked with well over 100 different gardens with very assorted clients with very different demands – demands both from the client and from the land they were responsible for. Human expectations can range far and wide and sometimes have no correlation to what actually is – people who like sun plants often have lots of shade – and those that love a cool shady feel have full on sun. Within those expectations are the limitations or restrictions of the actual site ecology.

Every time I hit a snag, I’d go back to the books (and now somewhat to the internet – but REALLY!!!  BEWARE!!! -the information I’ve seen needs careful evaluation) and come up with a new idea – I’d go out, apply the idea – and watch what happened and tried to establish why the results were whatever they were. Sometimes the solutions worked, sometimes they didn’t – and - here’s the big thing – I was lucky to have clients and friends who allowed that experimentation. 

I learned how to work with wildly unusual soils from that first client. Turns out her garden was on a vein of almost pottery level clay, VERY unusual, but it taught me about clays and what had to be done to free them up to perform – and perform they can! Just need tweaking! You can learn this too!!

I learned to prune using the plant’s core structural potential with the blessing of a client who was willing to let me work my way through her planting and then watch it restructure itself through the next three years with only touch up pruning, invaluable. You can learn this too!!

I learned to unleash bound up soils from a site and client that had truly unrealistic expectations and had pumped chemical solutions into the soil for years (fertilizers and pesticides) and had essentially created a biological dessert where everything that was needed for plant growth was there (according to standard soil tests etc., all minerals off the charts) and the plants were dying from malnutrition – sound familiar?? Alfalfa meal (actually, this is before I could get alfalfa meal so we soaked alfalfa cubes into a green and smelly slurry!), corn meal and earthworms to the rescue, and I wish I could go back to that site with what I’ve learned since then!!! Even so, we completely reestablished the rose garden and brought it back into full flower and it stayed that way until the property was sold. You can learn this too!

From that first garden challenge on, I read omnivorously, took classes where I could find them, went to conferences, explored related fields like horticultural therapy and nutrition (human, animal and plant) and experimented, experimented and experimented some more. So many ideas – so little time!!

Here’s the thing though, all of you have these chances to learn as well. The best thing about being a homeowner is that YOU control your actions on your property. Every move you make on your land can either improve its intrinsic health or weaken it – your choice.

How do you start you ask??

Observe as clearly as you can - Critical to everything and can’t be replaced by anything else. It’s your observations of your site that matter the most. Observation is a learned skill…so…learn it! Practice it! And use what it teaches you!  From this comes your site analysis and your understanding of all of the possibilities your yard can offer you.

This skill used to be developed from the time a baby was walking independently and engaged in its environment. This is still true of course since that’s the way the human organism develops, but that period of time is now used in observing the man made and built environment – not the natural environment. BUT – you can start learning this skill at any time! That’s also the wonder of the human organism.  Get your notebook (or phone!) out – make notes of what you see, smell, feel (wind and sun – cold/hot, wet/dry you get the drift). Jot down your strongest memories of the late winter and early spring and then keep going into this year’s evaluations and next year’s planning.

This is the kind of thinking that helps power through problems like early and late blight on tomatoes, mildew on phlox, or any other challenge to our gardens.  First, you have to really SEE (observe) the problem, then you have to PREPARE to handle it, and then – and only then – can you make an educated response stepping in so that you keep your garden from declining and perhaps, even enhancing the local ecosystem.

Gardens are human made events – at the best…a dance between natural systems and human needs – at worst – war. Use your best thoughts, research and experiences.  Read your own body language and use that information in creating a garden that you can be happy in (your shoulders will roll back, head will come up and your breath will deepen) not unhappy in (shoulders roll forward, head tips down, breathing is tighter). All of these signals are subtle so don’t think you’re going to be sensing something dramatic (unless the situation is REALLY good or bad for you). This allows you to check in with your emotional response to your yard – and that is just as critical as any other assessment!!! You are the gardener, the land manager, the human in the dance with your yard – find the rhythm J

 Well – I did warn you that winter was a time for thinking!!!  I’ll leave you with a quote that might make it easier -

• The best time to begin is now.

  • Start where you are. DO NOT wait for authority or a blueprint!

• Change will come, as it always does, from us. 

  • Each of us. If we care enough to lead.

• The opportunity to care is evenly distributed. 

  • EVERYONE has a chance to engage.

• The right-sized group and ceaseless peer-to-peer organization are the foundations of … change.

Seth Godin – Sethgodin.com

And that’s enough philosophy for now - let’s grow!!

We look forward to a great year ahead for everyone  😊  

Looking forward to seeing you at the store!