Mini Raised Bed Greenhouses for Sale

Look at these great greenhouses Eric Denice has built. We are offering four of them for sale this spring.  And can deliver them to you, too. We have used the same materials that go into our production greenhouses...6 mil plastic, hoops bent at just the right angle to shed water and snow, polycarbonate end walls, wiggle wire and extruded metal track for securing the plastic closed, and pipes that act as a "brake" for keeping the sides just where you want them. We are happy to give you a demo....or come and peek at ours that is all planted and growing along nicely.

You can roll up the sides, you can close it securely and easily, or even take the plastic all the way off once the weather warms up. The frame can act as part of a trellis system for tomatoes giving them a warm and dry environment as they size up, and then you can take the plastic all the way off and let them grow through the top of the frame. Just add a few horizontal lines of twine and, voila, instant tomato trellis!

Plants are nicely tucked in and cozy warm, no matter what the weather! You can easily get a 2 to 3 week jump on the season with this kind of season extension. The raised bed means that the soil is dry and warm long before garden beds, and the tight, plastic cover gives you warmth on cold nights. You can keep the sides rolled down on chilly, cloudy days, but it is best to roll them up a bit in the morning. It can get quite warm in there when the sun pops out. This type of greenhouse will allow you to harvest greens almost year round. It can also be used as a spot to start seeds, harden off plants, and gives you an extra zone of warmth if you would like to grow a perennial that is not usually hardy here.

We can deliver, bring you soil, plants, and have your instant garden ready in just an hour or so! Just add water.

Dimensions: 4' by 10' 

Base boards are made of 2" by 10" hemlock

Price $425

What can you plant now?

Lots of things can go in the garden now. Take advantage of some season extension, gentle April rains, and your spring garden eating will be taking place a little sooner. Season extension - row covers, cold frames, and mini greenhouses......

Crops that like it cold.....

Cabbage

Leeks

Onions

Artichokes

Bok Choi

Kale

Spinach

You can use row covers to extend the season and create a little spring heat in this cold year. We use a white, floating row cover (called Reemay sometimes) over hoops made out of 9 gauge wire, which can be found at farm supply stores. You can buy fancier hoops in garden centers, but the home made wire hoops work really well and cost a fraction of the price. You will need bolt cutters to cut the wire.

Happy cold time gardening, and please don't hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions!

Making Spring Time Planters

Celebrate Spring with us at our Cocktail Party and Greenhouse Tour Friday April 18th, 5pm to 7pm

Please join us April 18th, our opening day, for an evening tour of the greenhouses and a cocktail party with our friends from Caledonia Spirits. We will start at 5:00, take a walk around the greenhouses at 6:00, and get to see old and new friends to kick off our season with a spring celebration. Heidi Mahoney will be serving up some delicious herb-themed snacks, Caledonia Spirits will be serving sample tastes of their award winning vodka and gin, and we will have a cash bar featuring a special cocktail made with our herbs and more of that special gin and vodka.

I first met Todd Hardie, owner of Caledonia Spirits, in 2001. At the time, he had another very special business called Honey Garden Apiaries. Todd and his staff kept bee yards throughout the Champlain Valley and the St Lawrence Valley and they would extract the honey and bottle it raw and unfiltered. It was the most powerful food, full of the bees' adventures and vitality. His operation was based right next to where Red Wagon Plants is currently located. When I needed a little something extra to do that winter 15 years ago, a friend suggested I talk to Todd about helping him with extracting honey. I fell in love with honey and made a life long friend. As Todd would say, it was a fruit example of cross-pollination as our conversations were instantly filled with all of the possibilities of plants, honey, bees, and all of the various ways these things can interplay. Todd's creativity, energy and brilliance have no bounds. He went on to make incredible plant and honey based medicines as part of his business, which was part apiary and part apothecary. While he has moved on to the world of finely distilled spirits, one thing has not changed: Todd is always making products that vibrate with the powerful energy of bees, plants and people. There is an inspired quality in all he makes that can be tasted and felt, and that sets it apart from all the others. 

Please let us know you are coming so that we can plan accordingly. RSVP.

Please join us for a special evening and help kick off the 2014 garden season with a wonderful celebration. 

- Julie and the crew

Gerard's Bread Club

This year we will again be offering a weekly share of Gerard’s Bread!

Gerard Rubaud is Julie’s father and bakes wonderful bread in his wood-fired oven.

He uses a fermentation method that relies on wild (as opposed to commercial) yeast for leavening. The method, traditional in France, involves culturing grains, flour and water to produces a natural starter called levain. He grinds many of his ingredients from whole grains, including rye, spelt and wheat. About a quarter of his dough is comprised of these freshly ground grains, the remainder is white flour. It is simply delicious!

 How the Bread Share works:

• Prepay for 12 weeks, from April 19th to July 19th
• Pickups are on Saturday the bread is usually here at Red Wagon by noon.
• It costs $84.00 for the share, ($6 per loaf).
• If you can’t make it on Saturday for pick up we will hold your bread until Sunday evening. Or ask a friend to adopt your loaf!

If you are interested, please send us an email (julie@redwagonplants.com) or send a check made out to Red Wagon Plants to 2408 Shelburne Falls Rd Hinesburg, VT 05461.

Thanks!

Planning Now for Great Eating all Year Long

Lori and Doug's Garden

Garden Planning for the Seasonal Kitchen

Growing vegetables in your backyard, community garden or in some containers by the kitchen door is a great way to feed yourself -- whether it be just a few ripe tomatoes in August or a full-fledged homesteader's garden, you are on the right path to feeding yourself and your family. Gardening is a great way to improve how you eat while spending some contemplative time outside. With all of these benefits in mind, it is easy to jump into gardening enthusiastically, and you will reap even more rewards with a little bit of planning.

In Vermont, our gardening season seems short but can be stretched almost year round with a few simple tips. I always recommend that people take a look at how their vegetable gardens have been in the past and find just one or two things they would like to improve so that they can grow more of it for a longer season. For example a common question I hear is "how can I keep cilantro from bolting?" Well, in short, you can't! But with a few changes in your gardening practices, you can grow it all spring, summer, and fall without ever seeing it go to seed. The trick is to understand the life cycle of each vegetable or herb and how to best plant it to maximize it's harvest. With certain crops, like zucchini, it is best to understand how prolific they are and to plant them conservatively so that the entire garden (and thereby your diet and your neighbors' diet) is not taken over with just one thing. It is also helpful to plant things seasonally so that the harvest is not so overwhelming in August with little to eat before or after. Or sometimes we just want fresh salads all summer, but don't replant and are left salad-less after July 1st.

Succession Planting for Successful Gardening

Certain crops should be planted multiple times throughout the season to ensure a continuous harvest. This is called succession planting. How often you plant is a matter of taste and space and time. The following list describes the maximum you could do with each crop, but adjust according to your needs and priorities -- this is just a guide. If you want to make sure you have a certain vegetable all summer long, then you can follow the guidelines. If you want it a little less, then create your own modified planting schedule.

Planting Guide

Lettuce can be grown from seed or from transplants. Seed grown lettuce is often grown in a row that can be cut and will re- grow a few times - think of mesclun. Transplanted lettuce can be grown to produce full heads like what you find in the store. Both methods require regular planting every week or two for a continuous harvest.

• It can be planted from seed in mid-April to mid-August for cut greens
• Or it transplanted for full heads from late April / early May through early August.

Some people will transplant a few plants and plant some seeds at the same time in a different area; this method provides two generations of lettuce and two types of salad greens. Once the cut lettuce becomes bitter in the heat of summer, it is best to pull it up, recondition the soil with compost, and plant something else. If the goal is to always have fresh lettuce, it is very simple to do if you remember to replant it. You can even purchase a number of plants and hold some in their pots in a shady spot and only plant out a few each week. You can seed it yourself in trays or pots and follow this same method. Having several varieties, cold-tolerant ones for spring and fall plantings, and heat-tolerant ones for mid-summer, will produce the best flavor.

Cilantro is very similar to lettuce in its growing habits. It will grow up to a point and then goes to seed, called bolting. It will bolt more quickly in summer heat and, conversely, will stand ready to harvest for many weeks in the cool weather of fall--even early winter. It is good to time plantings so that cilantro is ready to harvest before June 21 (the solstice), and then plant more afterward. It can be transplanted or grown from seed. Like lettuce, it is simple to do both at the same time, thereby giving the gardener two generations. Cilantro seed is coriander, so it does have a use if you enjoy that flavor. There is nothing you can do to prevent cilantro from bolting entirely, but you can slow the process down by placing your mid-summer plantings in a partly-shady spot.

Dill can be treated just like cilantro, and, like coriander seed, dill seed heads have a use in the kitchen, so it is fine to let some of the dill patch go to seed. The seed heads can be used in pickles. you can also let them self-sow or save the fully dried seeds in a paper bag for replanting.

Basil can be planted multiple times for best results. Plants can be pinched to slow down the flowering, but best flavor will come from newly replanted basil plants. This is a heat loving plant. Should only be planted once soil temps are in the upper 50's - usually last week in May or first week in June. Basil's flavor is at its peak right before it starts to make flowers.

Cucumbers, cantaloupes, and zucchini and summer squash are best in quality when well tended.Just a single plant or two of any of those is usually enough for the home gardener, but by planting it two to three different times, the quality will always be good.

• The best planting dates are: June 1st (or last week in May if you are in a warm spot), July 1st and July 15th.

This method will ensure a continuous harvest of prime looking vegetables. Just remember to pull out and discard the pest- and disease- prone older plants. If your compost gets very hot and is well managed, it is okay to compost these plants. Pest problems will diminish when the older, less healthy plants are removed.

Arugula, Cress, and other cutting greens for saladsare best if sown or transplanted on a weekly or biweekly basis. Again, a small amount can be seeded next to the transplanted crops in order to give you 2 generations at once. This way you can have smaller quantities coming in at various times.

Broccoli gives the gardener a couple of options.

• It is best if transplanted and can be planted 3 dates in the spring and 3 dates in late summer for a continuous harvest.
• I would choose late April, early May and mid May for the spring plantings and
• then Early August, mid August and early September for the fall plantings. Full heads can be harvested and the plants can stay in the ground to produce side shoots.

Green Beans are best when fresh and young. The seed is relatively cheap, so it is better to rip out old plants and have new ones coming along regularly. Having smaller, multiple plantings also means that no on is stuck picking beans for hours on end. Sow new seeds when the previous or first generation is about 6 inches high.

Boc Choi, Cabbage, Scallions, and Cauliflower can also be planted multiple times. Cabbage holds well in the heat and

• can be planted every couple of weeks late April through early August.
• Boc Choi and Cauliflower are not as heat tolerant and should be planted around the same dates as broccoli (see above).
• It is best to use row cover like Reemay on these young transplants so that flea beetles do not destroy the plants.

Spinach is another one that does not do well in the heat, but can be planted multiple times in spring and late summer. It can also overwinter with a little straw mulch for very early spring eating.

• Frequency of planting can happen every week mid April to early June and then early August to mid September. T
• he last plantings in September are the ones which will be over-wintered and eaten the following spring.

Apply straw mulch on overwintering spinach in December once the ground is frozen.

Beets, Carrots, Turnipscan be planted every two or three weeks from mid-April until about the third week in July. Summer carrots are not the same as fall carrots and certain varieties do better in summer than in fall. The flavor of fall carrots is much sweeter, so I usually plant a larger patch in the fall. Fall carrots can also be stored all winter without going bad due to their lower moisture content. I don't love summer carrots, so I often skip those. Remember, it is all about what you like to eat.

Celery and Celeriac are slower growing and

• can be planted 1 to 3 times during the season, from mid May until early July.

These need lots of water and benefit from straw mulch to hold the moisture evenly around the roots. Bulb Fennel and radishes are similar to lettuce -- they can be planted each week if really loved, but they bolt in the heat and do best in the cooler temperatures of spring and fall.

• They are best if planted late April to early June and then again late August to mid September.

They are cold tolerant and hold well in late fall. Radishes are grown from seeds and fennel is best transplanted. Fennel also benefits from a straw mulch - even moisture around the roots is what helps it make larger roots. Corn -- it is possible to do multiple plantings over different weeks, but an easier method is to plant all at once, but with various varieties that have different days to maturity. There can be a 40 day span between early and late varieties.

Peas can be planted every week, but this requires a lot of harvesting, irrigating, trellising, and variety research. It is possible though. More practically,

• the home gardener can sow 2 or 3 varieties in late April with various days to maturity.
• Fall plantings are sometimes successful but are weather-dependent. These should be done in mid August.

The following are generally planted just once a year, but the harvest can be staggered with a few tricks

Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplant -- try a few varieties of each in order to not have everything at once. Determinate tomatoes will provide you with a big harvest all at once which is a good thing for people who make big batches of sauce for canning or freezing. Determinate tomatoes are the ones that grow until a certain height and then mature all at once. Indeterminate tomatoes are the ones that grow indefinitely until the frost and the fruit ripens gradually August until frost or disease kills the plant.

Peppers and eggplant are best if transplanted in early June once the soil warms up. One planting is usually plenty, but again an assortment of varieties will keep the harvest varied, staggered and interesting.

Onions and Potatoes are generally planted all at once, and again a few different varieties will provide you with a longer period of fresh eating. Both onions and potatoes can be stored for long periods of time in cool and dark conditions. Both can also be eaten fresh as young, green onions or new potatoes. Both can be harvested, cured, and stored for eating year round, though some onion varieties store much longer than others.

Winter Squash is another crop that is planted just once and can be stored. It is best cured for a week or two in a warm spot before eating.

March Madness Gift Card Raffle

It is March. It is cold. You are thinking about your garden... with maybe some seed catalogs or packets your are pawing through and you just want to do something that feels like spring. How about purchasing a gift card from Red Wagon Plants?

You can re-commit to your garden and support our amazing and hardworking staff as they seed and tend your plants for the best garden season ever. 

If you purchase a $100 gift card in March, five things happen.

1.We send you a gift card for $115. Right there, you have saved yourself $15 on plant purchases.

2. We will enter your name in our March Madness Gift Card Raffle. On March 31st, find out if you have won the March Madness Prize:

• a $50 gift card to our retail store (or 2 x $25 cards if you want to share)
• a bag of VT Compost Company's Compost Plus (aka "Magic Dust")
• a full flat of pansies
• 5 seed packets of your choice

3. If you refer a friend, we will enter your name again in the raffle, increasing your chances of winning. Just make sure that they tell us you referred them. 

4. You will become Plant Club member with a 50% discount at all of our events and you will benefit from our Customer Loyalty Program. 

5. You will have immense gratitude from all of us directed your way.

It is that simple. Thanks for the early season support. 

Mud Season Salad Club

The days are getting longer, and we are all eager for a little fresh food in our diet. Get a jump on spring with lovely living salads. For the month of April alone, we are offering a Mud Season Salad Club. Sign up now and get an assortment of living salad greens each week. The salads come ready to harvest and are planted in easy to carry containers. Take home trays full of luscious, ready to eat greens such as arugula, mache, lettuce, bok choi, pea shoots, sunflower sprouts, and tender herbs. If you would like to be part of this fun salad adventure, send an email to Julie@redwagonplants.com. The best thing about this salad club is that the greens are still alive when you pick them up, and you cut them only when you're ready to eat. No more rotting greens in the fridge! Elevate your salads to the countertop where you can feast on them with all your senses.  Here are the details:

Cost:  $100 for the month of April and we guarantee enough salad greens for 4 side salads a week for two salad eaters. That comes to about $3.00 a serving for the freshest greens you can find.

Pick up: at our Hinesburg Greenhouses at 2408 Shelburne Falls Road on Friday afternoons between 3 and 6pm. If you cannot make it then, no problem. Just email us and we will set them aside for you.  Bring your pots and trays back to us after you have cut the greens. We will compost the soil and use it in our gardens. The first pick up will be Friday, April 4th and the last pick up will be Friday, April 25th.

At home: All you need is room for three trays, about 10" by 20" each. It can be near a window, but that is not absolutely necessary since you will be harvesting them within a week. When you are ready for a salad, just snip the greens at the base with a paring knife or scissors, rinse and dry them, and toss with a very light dressing. We prefer a simple dressing of a good salad oil such as extra-virgin olive oil, hazelnut oil or walnut oil; a squeeze of lemon or splash of sherry vinegar; and a pinch of Maldon sea salt. These greens are so fresh, that you want to be able to really taste them. Keep the bottled dressing for those fridge greens! These are the counter top greens and they deserve top-shelf treatment.

To find out more, email julie@redwagonplants.com

If you are ready to sign up, send a check for $100 to:

Red Wagon Plants

2408 Shelburne Falls Rd

Hinesburg, VT 05461

Thanks so much. Bring in the bounty!

-Julie and the crew

Cabin Fever Gardening

It's the dead of winter and the weather has been...well, let's not even talk about it. The seed catalogs have poured in, they are lying all around the house, tempting us with dreams of future sunshine, dirt under the nails, baskets of produce, and all those things we are deprived of in these short, dark days.  Here are a few things I like to do to get through winter. I would love to hear other people's coping strategies, so please share your thoughts on cabin fever gardening. For one thing, meditate. Not necessarily in a formal way, but just sit still. Imagine seeds, roots, and bulbs that are buried deep in the frozen earth.  This period of short days is necessary in the life of a plant. It is a time of dormancy and rejuvenation, for plants as well as for humans. Rather than fight the dark days, embrace this as a time of year when you get to slow down, evaluate, and regenerate. I love that, because of my work, my life can follow seasonal rhythms to a certain extent. Winter is when I plan, plot, analyze, and restore.

Next, look for signs of green. As the days slowly lengthen, find a special shrub or tree to study on a regular basis. We have a row of willows along the edge of our property, and I love to check out the progress of the softening that happens very slowly, and then after mid-February, it speeds up a bit. The buds begin to swell, the color of the stems changes ever so slowly and slightly. Because plants are our best teachers, we can be the best students of plants with simple observation.

Focus on your houseplants. At our house, we neglect these poor plants all summer, but try to baby them a bit in the winter. Careful watering, cleaning, fertilizing as needed, potting into bigger pots, moving them around...these are all tasks we never have time for the rest of the year. You can also try your hand at propagating your own house plants. It is a great way to learn about plant physiology, and it gives you new plants as a bonus. Think holiday gifts for next year!  There is a great series of 15 short tutorials on You Tube that will teach you everything you need to know to multiply your houseplants. Ask friends for cuttings from their plants, diversify your own collection and learn about the various ways that all types of plants root.  Again, observation is key here, and the lesson learned in plant physiology will transfer to and inform your practical gardening knowledge outdoors.

Grow some sprouts.  There are great resources locally and on line. Here are some suggestions.

• Sprout People offers instruction, seeds and supplies.
• Johnny's Selected Seeds offers seed and supplies
• You can also make your own set up pretty cheaply with some window screen and mason jars. 
• High Mowing Seeds has some great options too.

Grow some greens and shoots. You'll need a grow light, otherwise, things will be leggy and less nutritious, even in a south facing window. You will also need some trays with drain holes, about 2 inches high, some good potting soil, and some good quality seeds. You can sprinkle seeds onto the surface of the soil, press down, and cover with a very thin layer of soil. Press down again, and water very gently and evenly. Try these crops for a quick 3 weeks to harvest: arugula, tatsoi, mustard greens, boc choi. If you are willing to wait a little longer, in 5 weeks, you can harvest baby lettuce, spinach, kale, chard, cilantro, or dill.  The trick here is to stick to varieties that grow quickly. You can only cut them once, the light will just not be strong enough for them to grow again.  Here are some instructions for growing pea shoots.

You can do this so easily in any kitchen and it is a great way to add some fresh, living foods to your winter diet.

Hope this helps, and don't hesitate to get with us on facebook, twitter @redwagonplants, or leave comments here. We really want to hear your winter gardening habits, tricks, trials, and successes.

Pictures from our Open House

Thanks so much to everyone who came to visit and to breathe in the loveliness of the herbs. We enjoyed every minute.  

Sage Cookies

 

I first made these cookies when a group of us from Red Wagon Plants took an herb cooking class with Jessica Bongard of Sweet Lime Cooking Studio last summer. We had such a fun time making herbal treats together, and I thought I would share this recipe. I just made it for our Open House and it was such a tasty way to use sage in a not-too sweet treat.

Sage Cookies 

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour 1/3 cup sugar 1/4 cup yellow cornmeal 1/2 cup butter (one stick), room temp 2 Tbsp chopped fresh sage 6 Tbsp milk 1 egg white, beaten with 1 Tbsp water (egg wash) fresh little sage leaves coarse sugar to sprinkle

• Preheat oven to 375
• Whisk together flour, sugar, and cornmeal in medium bowl
• Cut in butter using a fork, until fine crumb forms
• Stir in chopped sage
• Add milk stir with fork
• Make dough into 2 balls
• Roll out to 1/8 inch thick
• Use 2 inch cookie cutter, onto cookie sheet
• Brush with egg wash, add sage leaf or two, brush with egg wash again to seal
• Sprinkle with sugar
• Bake 12 minutes, until edges brown, turning pan halfway through

Enjoy!

Rosemary

Rosemary is a great herb for winter use. It can be grown as a houseplant, it can be used fresh, dried, or frozen, and it adds a warming, deep flavor to roasted vegetables, all kinds of braised meats, roasted chicken, pork, lamb or beef, and can be used in soups and dips. Here are a few ideas that will help you make friends with this uplifting and aromatic herb all winter.

As a houseplant, rosemary is best brought indoors as late as possible. It can take some really cold temperatures, down into the teens, and still look rugged and healthy. When you do bring it indoors, give it a large pot, and keep it away from direct heat sources (woodstove, radiators) and place it in a window with indirect light (east or north facing). In winter time, in your house,  rosemary would like to have cooler temperatures and moist air. You can give it moisture by spraying the foliage with a spray bottle of water every couple of days. And only water the soil when it is very dry.  You are trying to recreate a foggy, cool San Fransisco winter.

When you harvest fresh rosemary or buy it in the store, the sprigs can be kept in the fridge, in a plastic bag that is not sealed tightly for up to 3 weeks. It can also be left out on the counter in a basket, where it will dry nicely and can be used all winter. Once fully dried, pull the leaves off of the stem and place in a jar, in a dark, cool place.

Here are some ideas for using the rosemary:

Toss a sprig under any meat you might roast - a holiday turkey, ham, chicken, lamb, roast beef, or pork loin. While roasting, the rosemary will add wonderful flavor to the pan juices and the gravy made from those pan juices.

Finely chop the leaves and add them to the onions that are sauteed for making stuffing or other casseroles.

Infuse some whole milk or heavy cream over low heat for about 15 minutes with a sprig of rosemary, and use this in making creamed soups....squash, tomato bisque, broccoli, any kind of vegetable potage, potato-leek, etc, These soups will all benefit from the earthy, woodsy fragrance and flavor of the rosemary-infused cream or milk. 

For a rosemary dipping or basting oil, finely chopped 1 or 2 TBS rosemary, mix with 1 or 2 cloves finely chopped garlic, salt and pepper and add in 1/2 cup of good olive oil. Serve in a small bowl and drizzle with a 1/2 TSP of balsamic vinegar and use as a dip for bread or raw veggies.

The same mixture can be used to baste a roasting chicken, or drizzled on roasted root vegetables (before roasting, you can toss the veggies with the herb oil), or used as a sautee oil for greens such as kale and chard.

Rosemary can also be used as a fragrant addition to hot baths, massage oils, and home made cleaning products. It is one of the most versatile herbs we can grow, and even though it prefers a California climate, with a little persuasion and help, it can adapt beautifully to our Vermont weather.

We've been harvesting lots of rosemary this fall, and you can find it locally at Healthy Living and City Market and in the Boston area through Farmers to You.

 

Happy gardening and cooking,

Julie

OPEN HOUSE

OPEN HOUSE

Saturday, December 7, 2013

9 am to noon

Please come by for a visit in winter....see what we are up to this time of year, and enjoy a stroll through our indoor herb garden. We will have some houseplants and potted herbs for sale, gift certificates, and cut culinary herbs.....and we will have some warm tea and herb-themed nibbles.

We love to visit with  our friends and customers during the off-season, so please stop in!

Red Wagon Herbs

What's a greenhouse grower to do when the spring season winds down and there is still plenty of great weather for summer growing and the greenhouses are empty? Well, start a new business, that is what. We are so happy to introduce to you our new sister business, Red Wagon Herbs. We are growing Certified Organic herbs for year round harvest and selling to local stores, restaurants, and food hubs. Our focus is on the popular culinary herbs for now, but we are likely to branch out into the more unusual once we have had a chance to explore our markets and have gotten familiar with our new growing practices. This is a perfectly natural extension of our plant business since we already partner with fantastic stores and we love to grow herbs more than anything else. As a matter of fact, the plant business, in its earliest days, was just a potted herb business. In a way, we are going to back to those days and loving the continuity, evolution, and expansion.

Our herbs are grown using three different methods: in the ground for summer and fall harvest, in a new, unheated greenhouse (paid for in part by a grant from NRCS EQIP) for fall, winter and spring harvest, and in our existing, heated houses for those coldest months. We are excited to be the only Vermont farm offering organic herbs year round and hope you enjoy cooking with them as much as we enjoy growing them.

Please be on the look out for an Open House this fall so we can show you what we have been up to and give you a chance to smell, touch, taste, and see it all.

Our current line up consists of :

• Basil (March through November only)
• Chives
• Cilantro 
• Dill
• Curly and Flat Parsley
• Sage
• Thyme
• Oregano
• Tarragon
• Rosemary
• Savory
• Marjoram
• Spearmint
• Bouquet Garni ( a mixture of aromatic herbs for roasting, stocks, and more)

This Week in Photos - July 1, 2013

I am always amazed at the resilience of plants. In spite of the most difficult conditions (weeks of drought, weeks of rain, weeks of cold, or all of the above, as we have had this year) some manage to grow green leaves and flowers and fruit even. Although our gardens may be soggy, and some plants luckier than others, a walk into the garden always fills me with hope. For there the plants stand, as sturdy as ever, even after thrashing rain and storms that force drivers to the side of the road. No matter how bad they've been beaten down, they turn every available leaf to the sun when it returns. We may complain to each other, but the plants do not complain. Here and there they whisper their desires - a yellowed leaf signals hunger, the morning glory quietly clamors for the trellis, the peas croon to be picked. But at the end of the day we go to our gardens for solace, for the prospect of a meal and the reminder that singly we may be vulnerable, but together we are strong.  

Canna lilies

Hollyhocks

Moth and Scabiosa

'Raspberry Swirl' Dianthus

Malva 'Zebrina'

Luffa flower!

'Crazy Daisy' Leucanthemum

'Apricot Sparkles' Daylily

'Harvest Moon' Echinacea

'Origami Yellow' Columbine

'Zulu Prince' Cape Daisy

Nicotiana langsdorfii

We decided that gardeners should wear their strong arms with pride!

Hosta in bloom!

Dancing nasturtiums

Dr. Seuss' favorite: ageratum

~ Sophia

A Note on the Art of Making Signs

I have made hundreds of signs. Signs for plants, called benchcards, that tell you how to care for the plants and the myriad special characteristics they have. Attributes signs, directional signs, open and closed signs, A-frame signs, hand-painted and computer generated. Together they make up a jumble of information, but individually they are meaningful, making each species or cultivar stand out from its neighbors. Each benchcard is like a glimpse into the world of that variety...you walk up, peer in, and for a moment your imagination builds a picture of how that plant will look or smell or taste in your own world. The signs turn a greenhouse full of plants into a sort of museum, where each variety is given its own little spotlight in which to shine. Whenever I make signs I think of my Grandfather. He was a skilled painter, mainly watercolors; an interpreter of landscapes and streetscapes from vibrant African villages to the curve of a beach in the Bahamas. He could convey the essence of a place with such minimalism, a tiny brush mark here, a bit of white left showing somewhere else. When he died we held an art show in lieu of a memorial, which entailed going through all of his work and deciding what to display. To our amazement, we found that many pieces had a painting on both sides of the paper! So little was his regard for his own work that he could not be bothered with finding a fresh sheet. And, not surprisingly, he never sold many of his paintings. On the other hand, he was commissioned for many pieces - illustrations for children's books, advertisements, and - you guessed it - signs. It is easy to take commercial artwork for granted, but I don't think his ever was, such was the level of cleverness, creativity, and precision apparent in each of his pieces. While his signs had the clear mark of a trained and talented artist, mine have only a shadow of that mark. But they are made with love, with his memory cherished in my mind, and I hope they bring you closer to the plants in the same way they keep me close to him.

~ Sophia

The Past Few Weeks in Photos - June 5, 2013

There is nothing quite like stepping out into the early morning of a sunny day. Everything glitters as though it were coated in diamonds, and the plants look so fresh and thirsty for the day to begin. Just as after a heavy snowstorm the shapes of the plants are exaggerated, so are they on a summer morning, when the shadows are deep enough to fall into and their texture stands out in sharp relief. Here are some images from one such morning in our garden...

I have decided that if the vegetables were to have a beauty contest, eggplant would win.

Dew on the Spinach

Lacinato Kale

The rosy blush of French Breakfast Radishes

Cabbage

Chicory standing at attention

Red cabbage seedlings

Your source for little known herbs! This is Red Shiso, a cinnamon and clove-flavored herb often found in sushi

Rue, the "herb of grace"

Valerian, the herbal medicine chest

White Sage, a plant that grows wild in California and is tied up into smudge sticks

These cute succulents make great patio and houseplants

This year we have some really beautiful perennials, like hibiscus, featuring dinner plate-sized flowers

'Hot Papaya' Echinacea

'Strawberry Flair' Iris

'Banana Cream' Shasta Daisy

'Raspberry Regal' Coral Bells

And Eric built us this beautiful shade structure to house them in!

Here he is putting on the finishing touches: a slatted roof!

One of our insect friends sampling the Saponaria and Korean Lilac

~ Sophia

This Week in Photos - May 16, 2013

One of our friends came into the greenhouse today and said to me, "Well! The retail house is like a hive of industrious bees!" We are blessed by a hard-working, talented and productive crew that come to work smiling, rain or shine to bring healthy plants out into the world. But more than that, I've been realizing, we come to work to connect, to talk and share our stories, to laugh and feel a part of a community. And what a community we have! When hundreds of plants and the people that care about them come together, something amazing happens - neighbors who have never met before become friends, old and young teach and help one another, and children receive their first few seeds of plant knowledge. It seems that among the many important roles of plants (like turning CO2 into oxygen and feeding us) they also act as glue for our community, cementing it and making it strong.  

Hooray for warm weather and sunshine!

Happy gardening,

Sophia

Coming Home

Earlier this week, I went away for a total of 48 hours. This is astounding for a couple of reasons. Not only because it is May, and who do I think I am going away for a whole two days while trying to manage a greenhouse business. No, it's astounding because of the way that I came home.  I landed. I arrived. No stress, no jumping into a chaos of activity, no guilt at being gone, no extra work piled up. I came home to a busy crew doing everything well and calmly. I came home to happy customers loading up on plants while wearing big smiles. I came home to a feeling that all is right in my little world.  Two days off in May is hard to pull off in this line of work, but what helped me so much was that everyone who works here knew what to do, they made smart decisions and I am sure they handled problems with grace.  So, thank you, crew.

I also came home to a garden. I love my garden. The moments in the garden are rare and precious for me in May, but the first thing I did when I got out of the car, was go up to the large garden above the barn and finished planting a bed of strawberries. I harvested an armful of asparagus, collected the 4 eggs the hens had laid, picked a handful of chervil and flat full of mache, and I got to work making  dinner. I looked at my haul, as the sun was setting and felt embraced by the bounty.

We ate late. We ate well.

Egg Salad in Spring

Makes enough for dinner for 3 and leftovers for everyone's lunches. 

• Hard boil 8 to 10 eggs.  (My method is to put cold eggs and cold water in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil, covered with a lid. Let it boil one minute. Turn off the heat, but leave the pan on the burner. Set the timer for 8 minutes. Drain and run under cold water for 5 minutes.)
• Finely chop a handful of herbs - I used chervil and chives.
• Finely chop a rib or two of celery - I would have used lovage had it been big enough.
• Finely chop half a shallot or 3 scallions
• Peel the eggs and place in a shallow bowl. Cut them up with a couple of knives or a pastry cutter.
• Add all the other ingredients.
• Add enough home made mayo to moisten the whole thing.
• Stir gently.
• Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Homemade Mayonnaise

Add to the blender:

• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• a dash of cayenne
• 1/4 tsp of salt
• 1 tsp of Dijon mustard or 1/2 tsp dry English mustard
• Blend for a few seconds and then very slowly drizzle in 1/2 cup of olive oil, grape seed oil, or a blend of the two.  Drizzle it in a very thin stream while the blender is whirring around though the top of the blender cover. Or you can use a food processor and drizzle it in through the feeder tube. Or you can do it by hand in a bowl, with a whisk. If you do that, try to anchor the bowl by wrapping a damp towel around the base. Or get someone to help you with another set of hands to hold the bowl, or beat the eggs, or do the drizzling. Beat or blend or process until it starts to thicken up.
• Taste for salt and add a little pepper. If it is too thin, you can add more oil, still adding it in very slowly while blending.
• You can add fresh herbs to the mayo, a little crushed raw garlic, a little chopped poached or roasted garlic (mellower flavor), anchovies, spices, roasted peppers etc. (for cleanest flavors add just one of these other ingredients, not a combination.)

We ate this lovely egg salad with toasted Pain de Mie (or Pullman Bread) from Scratch Baking Company in South Portland, ME and the asparagus was steamed and cooled, served on the side, splashed with some lemon juice.

Mache Salad

Mache is also know as corn lettuce. It is a cold hardy green that germinates only in cool temperatures. We grow it in flats in the greenhouse in the winter and gorge on it from late March to late May. It is a sturdy green with a nutty flavor, and it is eaten as a whole plant, washed well under running water, and dressed lightly with hazelnut or walnut oil and a good sea salt - fleur de sel, Maldon, or sel gris. The small plants have a really interesting texture and a rich flavor that is perfect this time of year when one craves green and fresh.

To the garden, the hens, and the amazing crew at Red Wagon Plants, thanks. You make life pretty, tasty, and lovely.

-Julie

 

This Week in Photos: May 5, 2013

With all this sun shining lately, the plants couldn't be happier! Everything is blooming like crazy, the trees are leafing out a mile a minute, and the greenhouses are a flurry of activity. With so much going on, we have to remind ourselves to stop and smell the flowers, breathe in the spring air, and get our hands dirty in the garden. Here are a few snapshots from the last week at Red Wagon...

What's blooming in your garden?

~ Sophia