Boston Flora

Tag: Harvest Season

  • Sunday, October 25, 12:30 pm – 2:30 pm – A Pumpkin Full of Flowers

    Join Betsy Williams of The Proper Season for a fascinating session at Tower Hill Botanic Garden on Sunday, October 25 beginning at 12:30 pm, entitled A Pumpkin Full of Flowers.  Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater may have kept his wife in a pumpkin shell, but you can fill your sugar pumpkin shell with beautiful fall flowers as a grand welcome to the harvest season and Halloween.  After you have hollowed out a pumpkin, you’ll fill it with colorful, long-lasting fall flowers, preserved leaves, grasses and berries. All materials are included. Please bring floral scissors and an apron to class, since pumpkin cleaning can be a messy job. This program will be held under our open sided outdoor canopy tent. If it is too cold indoors, we will retreat in one of our well-ventelated classrooms. Group size will not exceed current state restrictions (10).

    The cost of the  session is $75 for Tower Hill members, $90 for non-members. Registration  may be done on line at www.towerhillbg.org.

     

     

  • Weekends, September 20 – October 13 – Tower Hill’s Bountiful Harvest Season

    Weekends, September 20 – October 13 – Tower Hill’s Bountiful Harvest Season

    Harvest season is approaching and that means Tower Hill Botanic Garden, 11 French Drive in Boylston, will be buzzing with four weekends of family activities celebrating summer’s bounty of plants, arts, and food.

    The special programming begins Sept. 20 and 21 with an appreciation of fall foliage and flowers. Activities will include fall crafts, an apple heirloom apple tasting tour, and a show and sale of stunning begonias and gesneriad flowers, such as the African violet.

    Local foods and flavors are the focus on the weekend of Sept. 27 and 28 with food and farm vendors on site both days, along with a display of vegetables grown at Tower Hill. On Saturday a youth garden workout, fall crafts, and apple tasting tour are all free with admission. Sunday features a garden tour as well as a wild edibles talk and walk.

    Oct. 4 and 5 is Artisan Weekend at Tower Hill with vendors selling handmade creations all weekend. Saturday’s highlights include an apple tasting tour, wreath making, a chamber group featuring baroque favorites, and the opening of internationally renowned designers Patch NYC’s latest show. On Sunday, join in with Russell Powell, author of Apples of New England, for a free talk and apple tasting, listen in with Susan Guagliumi, author of Handmade for the Garden, for creative do-it-yourself techniques, or sign up for a workshop to learn how to make a “Mountain High Apple Pie.”

    Tower Hill’s harvest weekend finale is Oct. 11 through 13. Activities include making leaf rubbings on a story walk, participating in a gardening book swap, creating fall crafts, joining a hay ride, sampling apples on a tasting tour, and learning about wild plants in the not-so-wild garden. Backyard chicken expert Terry Golson will host story time with her book Tillie Lays an Egg and Mass Audubon will conduct a Birds of Prey program.

    Harvest season means enjoying autumn views of Tower Hill’s 132-acre landscape and Mt. Wachusett, exploring the sustainable – and exquisitely designed – vegetable garden before it yields to winter, and discovering Tower Hill’s rare collection of heirloom apples, including 238 trees and 119 pre-20th century varieties.

    For more information on events presented by the nonprofit Tower Hill Botanical Garden at 11 French Drive in Boylston, Mass., please call 508-869-6111, visit towerhillbg.org, or email rburgess@towerhillbg.org.

    Home of the Worcester County Horticultural Society, Tower Hill Botanic Garden is less than an hour’s drive from Boston, Providence, Springfield, and Hartford and is nationally recognized as one of the finest gardens in the Northeast with more than 80,000 annual visitors and 6,000 active members.

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  • Saturday, October 1 – Sunday, October 2, 10 am – 5 pm – North Quabbin Garlic & Arts Festival

    The North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival at Forster’s Farm,  60 Chestnut Hill Road in Orange, Massachusetts is a celebration of the artistic, agricultural and cultural bounty of the region. The purpose of the festival is to unite North Quabbin people whose livelihoods are connected to the land and the arts, and to invite both local residents and those who do not live in the region to experience the richness of an area that is often overlooked. The festival emphasizes what is homegrown and high quality, as well as what helps preserve and support the environment. The festival is an engaging, fun and educational celebration for all ages. Everyone involved-organizers, vendors, volunteers, performers, attendees, a supportive community-makes the festival what it is and we are grateful and look forward to celebrating the richness of our communities for many years to come.

    The Agricultural Vendors at the Festival offer amazing, locally grown and produced products that celebrate the bounty of the North Quabbin and surrounding regions. Through on-going demonstrations and workshops you’ll learn to grow your own garlic, experience live honeybees, make an herbal tincture, or delight in a flower garland or wheat weaving. Celebrate this feast of the land, honor the good work of farmers, and rejoice in the harvest season. Don’t forget your shopping bag!

    The food vendors at the festival celebrate the bounty of the harvest through their delicious garlic infused creations. Individuals and restaurants that sell food at the festival are committed to culinary creativity and local agriculture. Some vendors are community organizations that raise funds through this event. Many vendors use organic and local ingredients. There is a ‘no polystyrene’ policy, and highlight biodegradable utensils and plates which are composted after the festival. Compostables from past festivals are now fertile soil rather than filling landfills!  The trash is transformed into compost – last year 10,000 people generated only three bags of garbage.

    The wood fired oven at the Garlic and Arts Festival was built 4 years ago for use at the festival and for the local community. It is used for baking loaf and flat breads like foccacia and pizza and for preparation of many other types of dishes. It can roast and even grill using the coals from the fire in the oven.

    The oven is built to an ancient Italian design fundamentally the same as larger ovens that still exist in the Pompei archeological site. There are many thousands of similar ovens in Italy today where backyard cooking and roasting is very popular. There have been similar ovens in many parts of the world for millenia along with other forms such as the pit and open topped ovens in Central and South Asia.  Garlic painting below by Julian Merrow-Smith.

    A complete list of demonstrations, games, activities, chef demonstrations, family stage productions, and workshops, along with directions, can be found at www.garlicandarts.org.

  • Saturday, October 9 – Monday, October 11, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm – Shades of Autumn Harvest Arts and Crafts Market

    Entertainment, apples, and children’s crafts will highlight Tower Hill Botanic Garden’s Shades of Autumn, an annual celebration of the harvest season, taking place Friday, October 9 – Monday, October 11, from 10 – 5.  Arts and Crafts Vendors feature stained glass, trellises, quilting, plants, edibles, photography, pottery, jewelry, and garden accessories.  Taste testing tours of the Preservation Apple Orchard will take place at 2 pm each day.  Enjoy a hayride (weather permitting) through the trails.

    Free admission for residents of Boylston and Clinton, courtesy of the event sponsors, the Boylston and Clinton Public Libraries. For directions and more information, log on to www.towerhillbg.org, or E-mail: thbg@towerhillbg.org . Phone: 508-869-6111

  • Saturday, October 2 – Sunday, October 3, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm – North Quabbin Garlic & Arts Festival

    The North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival at Forsters Farm,  60 Chestnut Hill Road in Orange, Massachusetts, to be held this year on Saturday and Sunday, October 2 – 3,  is a celebration of the artistic, agricultural and cultural bounty of the region. The purpose of the festival is to unite North Quabbin people whose livelihoods are connected to the land and the arts, and to invite both local residents and those who do not live in the region to experience the richness of an area that is often overlooked. The festival emphasizes what is homegrown and high quality, as well as what helps preserve and support the environment. The festival is an engaging, fun and educational celebration for all ages. Everyone involved-organizers, vendors, volunteers, performers, attendees, a supportive community-makes the festival what it is and we are grateful and look forward to celebrating the richness of our communities for many years to come.

    The Agricultural Vendors at the Festival offer amazing, locally grown and produced products that celebrate the bounty of the North Quabbin and surrounding regions. Through on-going demonstrations and workshops you’ll learn to grow your own garlic, experience live honeybees, make an herbal tincture, or delight in a flower garland or wheat weaving. Celebrate this feast of the land, honor the good work of farmers, and rejoice in the harvest season. Don’t forget your shopping bag!

    The food vendors at the festival celebrate the bounty of the harvest through their delicious garlic infused creations. Individuals and restaurants that sell food at the festival are committed to culinary creativity and local agriculture. Some vendors are community organizations that raise funds through this event. Many vendors use organic and local ingredients. There is a ‘no polystyrene’ policy, and highlight biodegradable utensils and plates which are composted after the festival. Compostables from past festivals are now fertile soil rather than filling landfills!

    The wood fired oven at the Garlic and Arts Festival was built 3 years ago for use at the festival and for the local community. It is used for baking loaf and flat breads like foccacia and pizza and for preparation of many other types of dishes. It can roast and even grill using the coals from the fire in the oven.

    The oven is built to an ancient Italian design fundamentally the same as larger ovens that still exist in the Pompei archeological site. There are many thousands of similar ovens in Italy today where backyard cooking and roasting is very popular. There have been similar ovens in many parts of the world for millenia along with other forms such as the pit and open topped ovens in Central and South Asia.  There will be music on two solar powered stages.

    A complete list of demonstrations, games, activities, chef demonstrations, family stage productions, and workshops, along with directions, can be found at www.garlicandarts.org. You may also email deb@seedsofsolidarity.org.

    http://garlicbob.com/art/wreath.jpg