Daily Archives: July 31, 2018

Wednesday, August 15, 7:00 pm – Grow What You Love: Twelve Food Plant Families to Change Your Life

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Grow What You Love is designed to be a simple guide to growing vegetables, herbs and more that will add to the flavor and variety of fresh produce choices throughout the year. Aimed at novice and experienced gardeners alike it will be an image-driven, how-to adventure from an expert gardener and communicator with an enthusiasm for an authentic life.

The colorful book begins with an exploration of author Emily Murphy’s approach to gardening and how it can fit into modern life with little time and effort. She goes on to give advice on how best to choose food plants that readers love, or can discover, and follows with simple methods for garden-to-table growing, including a selection of her favorite seasonal recipes. The result for readers is a garden-fresh bounty for any time of the year.

Emily Murphy is the author of the foodie-centric garden blog Pass The Pistil, and one of Garden Design Magazine’s “most loved” blogs of 2015. Emily is a web series host, a contributor to Better Homes and Gardens, a garden design and organic gardening consultant, and a teacher of organic gardening. Emily holds a degree in Ethnobotanical Resources from Humboldt State University where she also studied botany and environmental science. She will appear at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge, on Wednesday, August 15 at 7 pm. More information may be found at www.portersquarebooks.com.

Monday, August 20, 9:30 am – 12:30 pm – New England Heritage Gardens

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The Bidwell House Museum’s extensive ornamental gardens are designed to showcase historical, native, and pollinator-friendly plants, as well as herbs used by 18th century settlers. The main garden bed highlights the shrubs and perennials common to New England gardens of the era.The Heritage Garden gives visitors a look at the likely design and crops the Bidwells would have grown to feed their family and many community members.The Museum plants vegetable varieties that were present in New England in the mid-18th century, including Hubbard True Green squash, Red Wethersfield onions and Blue Pod Capucijners peas.The Museum has also started a collection of heirloom apple varieties that originated in Massachusetts in the same period, including Hightop Sweet and Westfield-Seek-No-Further.The four-square layout of the garden would have reminded the Bidwells of English garden design, a feature that was common throughout New England at the time.

Berkshire Botanical Garden will host a field trip to the garden in Monterey, Massachusetts on Monday, August 20 from 9:30 – 12:30 pm. Transportation to and from BBG included in price and time. $35 for BBG members, $45 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/new-england-heritage-gardens-offsite-field-study

Ruth Green owns Green Arts Gardens, specializing in organic landscape and edible garden design and installation. She is an accredited organic landscape care professional and holds a masters in landscape architecture. Ruth has been head gardener at the Bidwell Museum since 2009.