Articles by Reeser Manley
GARDENING IN TUNE WITH NATURE (blog)
Advice on Planting Warm-season Vegetable Crops
on May 22, 2013, at 6:51 p.m.
The peas are up in Marjorie’s Garden, as are the shallots, and the October-planted garlic is knee high. We planted asparagus crowns on May 19. Onion transplants planted three weeks ago wait for warmer weather while dandelions bloom on the fringes of the garden, the golden flowers swarming with honeybees, ...
GARDENING IN TUNE WITH NATURE (blog)
Native groundcovers for shady spots in the small garden
on May 16, 2013, at 6:43 p.m.
In my BDN post two weeks ago (May 2), I described four woody plants that belong in a small garden designed for all seasons: pagoda dogwood and the ‘Donald Wyman’ crabapple, both small trees, and two flowering shrubs, summersweet clethra and red-vein enkianthus, although the later can be developed into ...
You Don’t Want to Miss This Plant Sale
You don’t want to miss this plant sale! Hold Saturday, May 18, from 8:00 am til noon (rain or shine) for the University of Maine Master Gardener Volunteers Spring Plant Sale. In addition to dozens of your favorite perennials, including Maine natives, there will be scheduled talks on Rain Gardens ...
GARDENING IN TUNE WITH NATURE (blog)
A Farewell to Reilly
on May 07, 2013, at 7:30 p.m.
Reilly, our Brittany, died this past Saturday, May 4. She had just finished her tenth year of life, all of it spent with Marjorie, Lynne, and I, much of it with her best friend Dixie who we lost at the beginning of the year. Reilly spent the last months of ...
GARDENING IN TUNE WITH NATURE (blog)
A Small Garden for All Seasons
on May 02, 2013, at 7:23 p.m.
At a recent meeting of authors and booksellers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as we were all saying our goodbyes, a magazine editor handed me her card and asked if I would be interested in writing for the gardening section of the monthly publication. We maintained our rapid advance to the exit ...
GARDENING IN TUNE WITH NATURE (blog)
A Small Garden for All Seasons
on May 02, 2013, at 6:59 p.m.
At a recent meeting of authors and booksellers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as we were all saying our goodbyes, a magazine editor handed me her card and asked if I would be interested in writing for the gardening section of the monthly publication. We maintained our rapid advance to the exit ...
GARDENING IN TUNE WITH NATURE (blog)
Early May in the Vegetable Garden: Sowing Seeds of Edible Flowers
on April 26, 2013, at 3:26 p.m.
(Authors Note: Recommendations for early May sowing and planting are for gardens in USDA Zone 5. Readers who garden in Zone 3 should delay these activities by two weeks, those in Zone 4 by one week. If you garden in Zone 6 or 7 and have yet to do these ...
GARDENING IN TUNE WITH NATURE (blog)
Plant by Soil Temperature, Not by the Calendar or Phase of the Moon
on April 18, 2013, at 8:37 p.m.
(Author’s Note: The following essay appears in The New England Gardener’s Year by Reeser Manley and Marjorie Peronto. This month-by-month guide to gardening in New England is now on sale at local bookstores and online. Reeser will be speaking and signing copies of the book at the Blue Hill Library ...
GARDENING IN TUNE WITH NATURE (blog)
Northern Bayberry: A Native Shrub for the Sunny Garden
on April 09, 2013, at 7:27 p.m.
Finally, buds are swelling. Walking through Marjorie’s Garden with my morning coffee, I pause to inspect a red elder’s opening buds, tight clusters of purple flower buds surrounded by embryonic leaves. They look like miniature heads of purple broccoli. I stop next to inspect the Northern bayberries for signs of ...
GARDENING IN TUNE WITH NATURE (blog)
April Pruning of Forsythias
on April 03, 2013, at 5:50 p.m.
In the first week of April, while fall-planted garlic cloves are still encased in ice, I will take on any chore that gets me into the garden. So when the receding snow revealed the top portion of a downed spruce lying across the forsythia at the end of the driveway, ...
GARDENING IN TUNE WITH NATURE (blog)
The Garden in April
on March 25, 2013, at 8:04 p.m.
Last Wednesday, March 20, was a snow day for schools along the coast of Downeast Maine. As day broke in Eastport I could look out the window just beyond my computer screen and watch the cold wind off Passamaquoddy Bay, only a hundred yards away, swirl the falling snow down ...
GARDENING IN TUNE WITH NATURE (blog)
Coexisting with a Chipmunk Named Theodore
on March 18, 2013, at 8:26 p.m.
Author’s Note: The original version of this essay first appeared in the Bangor Daily News in August, 2010. It has since found its way into our new book, The New England Gardener’s Year, published by Cadent Press, Thomaston, ME. Marjorie and I will be talking about gardening in tune with ...
GARDENING IN TUNE WITH NATURE (blog)
Upcoming Book Signing in Bar Harbor
on March 12, 2013, at 7:38 p.m.
Hello all! Sherman’s Books and Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor are sponsoring a book signing event on Saturday, March 23, from 2-3:30 PM. Reeser will be speaking and both he and Marjorie will be signing copies of The New England Gardener’s Year. A percentage of book purchases will go ...
GARDENING IN TUNE WITH NATURE (blog)
Dandelions Belong in Every Garden
on March 12, 2013, at 5:55 a.m.
O DANDELION, rich and haughty, King of village flowers! Each day is coronation time, You have no humble hours. I like to see you bring a troop To beat the blue-grass spears, To scorn the lawn-mower that would be Like fate’s triumphant shears, Your yellow heads are cut away, It ...
GARDENING IN TUNE WITH NATURE (blog)
The Buzz about the Perfect Tomato
on March 05, 2013, at 5 a.m.
The perfect tomato, bright red, fully round, exploding with flavor when bitten or sliced, is the poster child of the vegetable garden, the favorite subject of summer chats over the garden fence. The veteran gardener assumes the role of teacher, defining her success in terms of choosing the best variety ...
GARDENING IN TUNE WITH NATURE (blog)
Forcing Branches of Flowering Trees and Shrubs
on Feb. 28, 2013, at 5:27 p.m.
(The following article appears in The New England Gardener’s Year by Reeser Manley and Marjorie Peronto (Cadent Publishing), now available at your local bookseller. Reeser will be signing books and answering garden questions at the Portland Flower Show on Saturday, March 9, 2013. Stop by and say hello!) By early ...
GARDENING IN TUNE WITH NATURE (blog)
What Should I Do with This Box of Old Seeds?
on Feb. 24, 2013, at 7 a.m.
As I write this column, three boxes of seeds sit stacked on the corner of my desk, two containing seeds received from various seed houses over the past month and one box marked “old seeds”, unsealed packets of seeds left over from previous years. As I gear up to sow ...
GARDENING IN TUNE WITH NATURE (blog)
Seed Exchange Creates a New Path in the Search for the Perfect Tomato Variety
on Feb. 14, 2013, at 11:58 a.m.
In late May of last year, the heirloom tomato variety Rose de Berne was recommended to me by one of the market gardeners at the local farmer’s market. He considers it a good choice for our short and often cool summers, so I purchased a six pack of his transplants ...
GARDENING IN TUNE WITH NATURE (blog)
Aphids are Indicators of a Healthy Garden
on Feb. 08, 2013, at 6:25 p.m.
Also known as plant lice, aphids seek out the new leaves and tender stems of garden plants, piercing epidermal tissues and sucking the nitrogen-rich sap. A few aphids rapidly become a herd, standing room only on your favorite herbaceous perennial or shrub. In the past, I have known otherwise rational ...
GARDENING IN TUNE WITH NATURE (blog)
Meeting the Great Black Wasp
on Feb. 04, 2013, at 7:44 p.m.
My computer’s dictionary defines “insectary” as “a place where insects are kept, exhibited, and studied.” This definition conjures up images of a dusty museum room filled with glass-topped cases of brittle specimens, each with a pin inserted through its thorax. A thin rectangular slip of paper just below the head ...
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