Massachusetts

Boston Local Secrets 2010

Best Free Therapy BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY COURTYARD, Boston One of the most peaceful, secluded, and historic places in the city. Walk into the library’s McKim Building and you’ll come upon a breathtaking Italianate central courtyard surrounded by an arcaded gallery. Sit on the bench with a book, or head to the adjoining restaurant for a […]

Connecticut

Connecticut Local Secrets 2010

Best Outdoor Eating MITCHELL’S ON THE RIVER, Rocky Hill There’s no denying the summery pleasure of cheap eats at a breezy seafood shack. A mere stone’s throw from the Connecticut River, this seasonal al fresco joint hosts a laid-back crowd, noshing on fried fish, burgers, and ice cream at picnic tables overlooking the historic Glastonbury/Rocky […]

Food

Homegrown: Green Peas

More recipes: Recipes with Fresh Peas While still awaiting New England’s leafy greens and brimming farmers’ markets, you can taste the season’s warmth with the arrival of crisp and crunchy spring peas. You can plant this fast-growing, cool-weather legume (Pisum sativum) as soon as the soil is workable. Delivered Daily: New England Recipes and Tried […]

Gardens

Find Edible Wild Plants in Spring

Maine native Tom Seymour is an expert on foraging for edible wild plants. [slideshow post_id=”96094″] Eating wild doesn’t always require venturing far. “A vacant lot in town may have more to find than the Allagash Wilderness,” says Tom Seymour. A few years ago in Maine’s Moosehead Lake region, Seymour led a plant seminar whose participants […]

Yankee

Books: Poems, Birds, Gardens

In his typically smart and funny introduction to Bright Wings, former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins cheerfully admits the uselessness of poetry. “Of course, if the meaning of ‘useful’ is extended from how to assemble a piece of outdoor furniture to how to engage our verbal intelligence and uplift the human spirit,” he adds, “then […]

Homes

House For Sale: Affordable Oceanfront in Maine

In search of affordable oceanfront New England properties, we’ve found eight for $300,000 or less in New England’s most beautiful coastal area. Read more about Maine: Down East Stories Can you imagine a county in New England more than twice the size of Rhode Island–with only two traffic lights? Well, the town of Lubec and […]

Gardens

Hoop Houses

Coleman says you can find simple, inexpensive options out there to protect your plants. If you’re already using a cold frame, he recommends getting six unused 2x4s and building an A-frame around the structure, then wrapping the new enclosure in greenhouse plastic. No cold frame? No problem. Coleman is also a big fan of “hoop […]

Gardens

Begin in August

Coleman’s winter planting begins in early August and extends through mid-September, a period he likes to refer to as a “second spring.” “You have to get the plants established while the growing season still has something left to it,” he says.

Magazine

Finding Grace in a Cemetery

I grew up in cemeteries. One Sunday afternoon a month, after Mass, after the midday meal of lasagna or spaghetti and meatballs, my grandmother visited the dead. Mama Rose never learned to drive, so her cousin–Uncle Rum–took her from graveyard to graveyard in his square green Ford. I didn’t have a choice; when Mama Rose […]

Gardens

Make a Terrarium | Plant Crafts

Grow in glass, and you can savor a tiny sample of summer at your elbow in any season. Today’s terrariums are sleek, simple, and fuss-free. Enlist any glass container–apothecary jar, soup tureen, cookie jar, canning jar, or whatever you have on hand. Choose one with a wide mouth for easy maintenance (put a lid on […]

Gardens

Garden Solutions: Perennials and Groundcover

I’m distressed that some of the plants in my perennial garden are really overgrown and crowded. What should I do? — J. K., Wellesley, MA Fall is an excellent time to transplant perennials such as hosta, daylily, peony, iris, and a multitude of others that you can readily divide. By autumn most plants have attained […]

Living

In the Wild

My father used to pay me a penny for every dandelion that I dug up out of his lawn. He was a post-war suburban homeowner, anxious to remove those blights from the carpet of green he worked so hard to create. His penny could not be had without the entire root of the plant. Just […]

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