The Garden Club of the Back Bay

This fall, as the local harvest peaks and thoughts shift toward winter eating, the Northeast Organic Farmer’s Association/Massachusetts (NOFA) presents its first annual statewide Fall Food Preservation Day.  On September 19 there will be food preservation workshops spread throughout the state (see below for recommended site for Back Bay). Preserving food that we grow or purchase locally at the height of its freshness and flavor can save money, lessen our dependence on the global corporate food chain, and provide wonderful flavor and real food all year round.  Isn’t now a good time to learn skills to do this? Workshops in this series cover some or all of these topic areas:
• Lacto Fermentation: Using salt to suppress spoiling bacteria while fostering growth of beneficial lacto bacillus bacteria, which are present on vegetables and produce the preservative, lactic acid.
• Pickling: Using vinegar to preserve vegetables or fruits along with spices and herbs.
• Water Bath Canning: Using a boiling pot of water to push out air and seal the rubber lid of glass jars containing high acid foods.
• Pressure Canning: Using a pressure canner to create high temperature steam that pushes out air and seals the rubber lid of glass jars containing low acid foods.
• Freezing: Maximizing nutrient preservation in the food.
• Drying: Removing most of the water from a food and then keeping it dry so molds cannot take hold.
• Culturing: Using microorganisms to transform the sugars or lactose of various liquid foods into other kinds of nutritious and tasty substances.
• Root Cellaring: Putting foods – particularly root crops – in cool, dark, and properly humid conditions for extended storage.

These workshops are being led by experienced food preservation educators with wide ranging skills and culinary styles.  In addition to explaining and demonstrating some key steps that can empower to you incorporate food preservation as a part of your culinary life, these workshops provide an opportunity for you to ask questions and meet others in your community who share your interests. Whether you are a newcomer to food preservation or you are looking to expand your skills and concepts in certain areas, these workshops are for you.

Workshop Registration Information:
• Pre-registration (do so by logging on to www.nofamass.org ), but on-site late registration is available for an extra $5 charge with on-site registration form.
• Cancellations will be honored and refunds issued (except $10 processing fee) with notice made by Sept. 9, 2009. After that, you may designate someone else to attend in your stead, but refunds will not be available.
• Scholarships may be available for those who need and apply for them. A short application is required. Please ask!
• Potluck Lunches will be shared at each 6 hour event. Bring utensils & plate and something to share, or bring your own lunch.
• Contact: Ben Grosscup, 413-658-5374. By email, ben.grosscup@nofamass.org; put “September 19″ in subject.
• Closest Workshop for Garden Club of the Back Bay (other locations available – check NOFA website): Home of Jill Ebbott, 70 Beaconsfield Road, Brookline, MA. Time: 9am-12 noon (Special cost: $35 with $3 discount for NOFA membership and $3 discount for early registration.) Limit: 12
  Various culturing methods for lacto-fermentation, including making whey/cream cheese, sauerkraut, lacto-fermented soda, yoghurt, raw seafood salad with whey/lime, kombucha, and beet kvass. Handouts provided.
  Instructor Jill Ebbott is a Pregnancy Nutrition Counselor, helping avoid complications and foster child’s  long-term health.

Cider Hill Farm in Amesbury, Massachusetts, began in 1978 when Ed and Eleanor Cook purchased the old Battis Dairy Farm with the hope of transforming it into an apple farm. Not long after that, the Cook’s son, Glenn, along with his new bride, Karen, bought the adjacent Vedrani Poultry Farm so they could start a quality life together. Now, with three generations diligently tending to the chores, they bring you a beautiful and diverse farm operation that looks and feels everything but first generation.

We are excited to announce the final Farm to Table Dinner with the Cook family on their grounds. Festivities will begin at 6:00 pm and will include the following:

~ A Four Course Meal prepared by Good Tastes Kitchen, sourcing from Cider Hill Farm and other local purveyors.
~ Wine, Beer & Beverages from local artisans.
~ Live Music

Seats ($80 each) are limited to the first 100 tickets sold. TICKETS MUST BE PURCHASED BY SEPTEMBER 6TH. For further details and directions please log on to www.ciderhill.com, or call the number below.

PLEASE NOTE: THERE ARE NO PAPER TICKETS FOR THIS EVENT!!! Please call 978-518-5300 with any questions and to place your reservation over the phone.

The New England Carnivorous Plant Society (www.necps.org) will hold a cookout and show on Sunday, August 30, beginning at 8:45 in the morning at the Black Jungle, 370 Avenue A, Turners Falls, Massachusetts 01376.  This annual event is always much anticipated.  You will see all sorts of plants, and there are wonderful discounts for NECPS members.  See the site for information on joining ($20/year for adults).  This year, there will be a visit and talk from renowned author Stewart McPherson.  Stewart has written several amazing books on varieties of carnivorous plants, and has new ones on the way.  He will be giving a talk on Nepenthes, and will be signing books.  This is a wonderful chance to speak with and meet a true giant of the CP world.

Join the Northeast Seacoast unit of the Herb Society of America on an end of summer Herb Walk in the woods.  Meet at The Mustard Seed, 80 Stage Road, Nottingham, New Hampshire.  The walk will be led by Jen Munson, 603-427-1475.  You may email her for directions at jenmun@yahoo.com.  The website for the Herb Society of America is www.herbsociety.org.

It was just over a year ago that the Asian longhorned beetle (ALB) was first reported by Worcester resident Donna Massie. Since that time, local, state, and federal entities have joined together to fight the infestation of an invasive pest that has caused negative impact to the City of Worcester and placed the Commonwealth as well as the entire Northeastern United States on high alert. To this end, the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) has worked with the Governor’s Office to declare August as Asian Longhorned Beetle Awareness Month, with the goal of encouraging every resident in the Commonwealth to learn to identify and report sightings of this invasive insect.  Aren’t you glad you know?

The Yankee District of the American Rose Society announces its Fall Rose Show and Lobster Fest, to be held Saturday, September 12 at the First Congregational Church of Yarmouthport, 329 Main Street (6A) in Yarmouthport.  Contact Oz at ozrose@comcast.net for times.  A bed & breakfast next to the First Congregational Church is holding rooms: contact www.colonialhousecapecod.com and mention the rose event.  The rose show will be in very close proximity to Grays Beach, the location of the Lobster Fest.  In case of bad weather, the Lobster Fest will be held in the Church Hall.  The price of the Lobster Fest will be $40, and includes chowder, 1 1/2 lb. lobster or a 16 oz grilled New York steak, native steamers, mussels, corn on the cob, onions, red bliss potatoes, linguica, and watermelon.  Send your check, specifying lobster or steak, to Audrey Osborn, 12 Scotch Pine Farm, East Harwich, MA 02645.  You may also call 508-221-6734 for more information.

Not exactly a garden event, but something of interest to our Boston members is the 17th Annual Cambridge Carnival International.  This is a colorful and festive celebration rooted in African traditions.  The festival attracts over 150,000 people, making it the largest festival in Cambridge, Massachusetts  The highlight of this annual Mardi Gras style festival is a grand costume parade accompanied by rich rhythmic musicality promoting all types of cultures.  The festival combines food and craft exhibits, costumes, masks, wire-bending, live music, steel pan, street parades and dancing, displaying the history and culture of the Caribbean traditions based on the models of Trinidad, Tobago, and Brazil.  For more information log on to www.cambridgecarnival.org.  The Children’s Museum will feature “Meet Me at the Table,” and will focus on food and art activities that relate to six different cultures around Boston: Brazilian, Haitian/Caribbean, Puerto Rican and Dominican, Cape Verdean, Chinese and Vietnamese. They will be setting a table with beautiful, artist-made play food, and will encourage festival participants to eat and play together. Activities will include making collage place mats that will then go back to the museum for use at our big end-of-summer party in September.

What better way than to end your day at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, 11 French Drive, Boylston, Massachusetts, than with a floral design class? Instructor Al DeLuca will discuss floral design theory, give inside tips, and walk you through the steps in creating your own beautiful floral arrangement to take home! Beginner to advanced.
Taking inspiration from nature, this class will teach you how to interpret what you see outdoors in floral design to bring a bit of nature indoors.

Al DeLuca is accredited in floral design by the American Institute of Floral Designers and has been recognized for his outstanding contribution to the floral industry by the American Academy of Floriculture. His designs have been featured in both the Philadelphia and Boston Flower Shows. His mastery of floriculture ranges from contemporary to traditional and European styles.

Registration by September 9 is required.  Cost – $58 for Tower Hill Members, $63 for Non-Members.  For more information, log on to www.towerhillbg.org.

Matt Mattus, of Worcester, Massachusetts, maintains a very good website, www.growingwithplants.com, and this week formally announced the publishing of the first prototype issue of Plant Society Magazine, available now at Magcloud.com.  Here is what Matt says about his new venture:

“Magcloud is HP’s new Beta self publishing site for magazines, and I am using it to launch the first few issues. Magcloud tells me that that they can currently ship directly to USA, Canada and the UK. Let me know how it works if you are outside of the US. As a designer, horticulturist, trend hunter, artist, photographer, blogger and plant collector, it only seemed natural to use this new platform to launch this venture. After all, I design magazines for a living, I evaluate publication design for many of the major graphic design journals and annual award issues, I speak at both leading visual design conferences, and plant societies, and I have a vault of images taken over the past ten years from my greenhouses, alpine house and gardens.

The publishing business is changing so fast, that what once was seen as vanity publishing, is now much more accepted in our new digital world of blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc. You can think of this as a magazine, or a blogazine. Either way, it will morph and change as I develop future issues to include both plant related features focusing on subjects not examined by the mass market magazines, and garden lifestyle – with inspirational crafts, holiday design, food, travel, and more all planned for future issues.

The first issue of this quarterly magazine is for people who are serious about plants. You know who you are, you don’t just like plants, you are crazy about them. You don’t just collect them, you curate your collections and you will do most anything to get that plant that you do not have.  This stunningly designed plant quarterly is a plant connoisseur’s dream come true.  It’s part botanical journal, part lifestyle magazine and part blogazine.

This issue focuses on high summer, both in the greenhouse and in the garden of the plant collector. Learn about Nerine sarniensis, the Guernsey Lilies, Japanese trained chrysanthemums, rare South African Geraniums (Pelargonium in the section Horarea), and Crocosmia.

Currently the magazine sells for $14.99. at 75 pages, but it is on sale as a feature of Magcloud for around $12.00 US give or take some change for shipping and handling directly through the website MAGCLOUD. Anyone in the US, Canada or UK can order direct from the Magcloud website portal, and can even pay directly from their credit card or Paypal on the site. Magcloud prints to order, and the process is very easy. In five days or less, the magazine will be printed, bound, and mailed directly to you.”

Dreamy. Refreshing. Unparalleled. Basin Harbor Club (www.basinharbor.com) in Vergennes, VT (just south of Burlington, VT) is a majestic, 700-acre resort on Lake Champlain. It has charming cottages, a statuesque Main Lodge, great dining facilities, beautiful gardens, tennis courts, nature trails, heated outdoor pool, an 18-hole golf course, and more. The program kicks off Sunday afternoon, September 20th at 3:00 p.m. with a garden talk by the infamous garden designer, Sydney Eddison. This will be followed by a wine and cheese boat cruise. The garden program continues on Monday, September 21 until 3:00 p.m. Overnight and day-only rates are available.

This year’s program will be hosted by Sydney Eddison, Anita Dafonte, and Kerry Ann Mendez. Sydney has written six award-winning gardening books and is currently writing her seventh masterpiece to be out in 2010. Based in Newtown, CT, Sydney travels around the country giving her infamous talks. Her gardens have been featured in Martha Stewart Living and on The Victory Garden. She has received the Connecticut Horticultural Society’s Gustav A.L. Melquist Award in 2002; the New England Wild Flower Society Kathryn S. Taylor Award in 2005 and 2006, and The Federated Garden Club of Connecticut’s Bronze Medal. Anita is the associate editor of People, Places & Plants magazine and has worked in national gardening sales for years. She’s an avid gardener and cook and was also the manager of a vintage-car race team!

Sydney will present two dynamic talks. Her first on Sunday afternoon is titled The Rainbow Contained. This talk explores connections between color in art, nature and the garden and how you can create contrast and harmony to create beautiful compositions. On Monday Sydney will have
you thinking outside the box with her presentation The Unsung Season, Gardens in
Winter. Kerry will lead two interactive garden talks. Putting Your Gardens to Bed for the
Winter will cover shortcuts and proven techniques for wintering over gardens including care
for shrubs, roses, and vines. She’ll also cover tips for getting the best deals at fall garden
center sales. Her second talk, Give New Life to Tired Gardens will feature a pro’s secrets for beautifying and revitalizing lackluster gardens, including some of her favorite, top performing plants. Anita will delight you with her popular talk Eggplants on Parade. The presentation will feature a slide show from her own gardens and how to make a vegetable garden both productive and beautiful.

The one night package includes Sunday afternoon’s lecture by Sydney; the wine and cheese boat cruise; one night’s accommodations; breakfast and lunch buffets on Monday; four garden talks on Monday; handouts, colorful garden catalogs, and a garden gift. Package rates are $220 for a single and $335 for a double ($167.50 per person). Taxes and gratuity are additional. The Sunday and Monday day-only rate (includes all of the above except overnight accommodations) is $160 per person. The Monday only day rate is $110 and includes the garden program, handouts, morning coffee, lunch, and a garden gift. To see how incredible these resort rates are, check out the video tour on the Club’s web site. Please call Basin Harbor Club at (800) 622-4000 to reserve overnight packages. Day only reservations go through Perennially Yours. Please visit www.pyours.com/gardenclasses.html or call  (518) 885-3471.

The Town of Acushnet is less than an hour away from the Back Bay, and is the heart of Massachusetts peach growing. Fifteen musical groups, playing soft rock, R&B, show tunes, country and rock, will perform hourly at this year’s festival, which is slated for the weekend of Sept. 11-13.
Staying true to its original purpose — promoting local orchards — the festival will feature area produce. Braley Orchards, Peters Orchards and Flying Cloud Orchards will offer apples, peaches, cider and pies. The peach cobbler will be made by the Historical Society, and organizers promise it is “the best around.” A variety of snacks, meals, beer and wine will be served.
“Nobody goes away from (the festival) hungry,” festival committee member Sue Picard said. “There’s pie and cobbler, bloomin’ onions; you just never stop eating all day.”
Seventy booths will display the wares of craftsmen from around the country. For children, there will be a dunk tank, bungee-jumping game, moonwalk and other activities.
On Sunday, the parade will start at 10 a.m. at Pope Park and end at the festival grounds, the Long Plain Museum at 1203 Main St., where trophies will be awarded for the best floats. The Miss Apple Peach pageant participants will march.
The gates will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Parking and admission are free; shuttle buses run frequently from the middle school parking area.

Written by Alice Waters, one of America’s most influential chefs, “Chez Panisse Fruit” is one of a series of books which sparked a culinary movement.  Chez Panisse, one of the country’s best restaurants, became a focal point for local, conscientiously produced foods.  The restaurant spawned a collection of respected cookbooks which feature essays, beautiful illustrations, and, of course, delectable recipes.  In this class, Stir’s chefs will present a smattering of amazing sweet and savory fruit dishes using produce from Massachusetts local farms.  Enjoy simple, seasonal, rfefined cooking at its best while gathering lessons on how to shop at markets and cook seasonally.  Class is held Wednesday, September 2 at 102 Waltham Street in the South End beginning at 7 pm.  The cost of this session is $135.  Sign up by calling 617-423-7847.

Stir is part of the continuing education program at the heart of Barbara Lynch Gruppo, a team of passionate, hardworking individuals who speak on behalf of our farmers, winemakers and distillers, as well as one another, through a medium of food, wine, spirits, service and hospitality.  Classes and special dinners are held throughout the year.  See the complete listings at www.stirboston.com.

Few things are more rewarding than plucking a lemon off your plant in the middle of the winter or savoring your own fresh figs in the middle of summer. Learn to grow numerous types of citrus including; lemons, limes, and oranges, along with delicious figs, on your windowsill or in your garden. We will cover propagation, light, feeding, and general culture. Each participant goes home with a plant.  This workshop is sponsored by Historic New England at the Lyman Estate Greenhouses in Waltham, Massachusetts.  For more information and directions, log on to www.historicnewengland.org, or call Susanna Crampton at 781-891-4882.  She can also be reached by email at scrampton@historicnewengland.org.  The fee is $35 per participant.

Spend an afternoon at the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain with Michael Dosmann, curator of living collections, as he discusses the natural history of many of the Arboretum’s notorious nut species.  Mr. Dosmann was a popular speaker at a Garden Club of the Back Bay meeting a few seasons ago, and you will enjoy this walking tour with him.  Dress comfortably with good walking shoes.

Free, but advance registration is requested.  Log on to www.arboretum.harvard.edu.

Help us harvest! Plimoth Plantation’s colonial interpretation staff has planted a corn crop in mud and rotten fish, scared crows and woodchucks away from the seedlings, hilled the stalks in summer heat and driving rain, battled earworms, squirrels and turkeys, then pulled and hoed more weeds than could ever be counted… Now, the corn is finally ready to harvest!  Roll up your sleeves and please join the English colonists in the English Village to assist bringing in the 2009 crop of corn!  This fully-immersive, hands-on program and is suitable for anyone aged 5 and up. Harvest the crops and take home a bushel of agricultural knowledge!  For more information, log on to www.plimoth.org.

On Wednesday, September 2, MassHort and the Perennial Plant Association are teaming up to offer a day-long seminar titled, ‘Creating a Garden for Multi-Season Interest’. They’re bringing in some of the best writers, down-to-earth speakers and creative plantsmen in the business to Elm Bank, and you’re invited to listen, learn and ask questions.

The speakers include Adrian Bloom (of Blooms of Bressingham); Stephanie Cohen, who has earned the title of ‘the Perennial Diva’; William Cullina of the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden; ‘Victory Garden’ host and writer Roger Swain, Weston Nurseries’ Wayne Mezitt, and MassHort’s own Joe Kunkel.

Adrian Bloom starts things off by talking about the practical and inspirational factors for success in a garden. His thesis is that we all know that perennials and grasses have a changing role to play through the seasons but how often do we consider their placing and potential impact in combination with other plants? Elm Bank’s Bressingham Garden is a study in how to make the a garden’s impact greater than the sum total of its plants.

Award-willing author and garden designer Stephanie Cohen will focus on the autumn garden. The lushness of summer need not be followed by a whimper in the fall. Ms. Cohen will show examples of perennials and grasses that peak in autumn, berries and fruits, bark, and glorious color adorning trees and shrubs. You’ll walk away with an understanding that ‘Fallscaping’ ought to be a part of every garden’s design.

Bill Cullina may well be the world’s most engaging garden writer. Books about perennials fill the shelves of every store, but Cullina’s newest offering in his series on plants, ‘Perennials: A New Look at an Old Favorite’, breathes new insights into a familiar subject. He will present the “psychology of perennials” – their needs, wants, and potentials. By starting at the roots, moving up the stems, leaves and flowers, Bill will provide both new and seasoned gardeners with a strong foundation for a lasting relationship with perennials.

In the afternoon, horticulturalist Roger Swain will address the subject of garden tools. His view is that hand tools – the trowels, spades and other implements that extend our reach and power – may have evolved for evolution’s sake rather than for the benefit of the user. His presentation will be a tour through the evolution of familiar garden tools emphasizing the importance of matching not only the tool to the task, but fitting it to the user’s hand and body.

Swain will be followed by veteran New England plantsman Wayne Mezitt, who will focus on the interplay between woody plants and perennials. Mezitt, whose family has bred many of best known rhododendron and azalea in use in the northeast today, will offer practical advice on flowering shrubs that push the beginning and end of the gardening season in New England.

The day’s final speaker will be veteran nurseryman and MassHort executive director Joe Kunkel, who will speak on plant evaluations at Elm Bank. Commercial plant breeders from around the world send Elm Bank hundreds of cultivars for evaluation. Kunkel will highlight the plants that have stood out among their peers in the New England Trial Garden and the Bressingham Garden. He’ll talk about how homeowners can use regional trial gardens to narrow the list of attractive cultivars to a group that not only looks good in a pot at a garden center, but that will thrive in a back yard.

The program runs from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The fee for those who register before August 25 is $95. The price rises $20 after that date. Lunch is included in the cost of the program.

To sign up download the program and registration form or call 614-771-8431.
Early registration ends August 25.

Masses of blue and gold daisies set New England gardens aglow in September.  Flowering grasses, drifts of asters, heleniums, boltonias, Japanese anemones, and sedums contrast with the luxuriant growth of tropicals.  Gardens wake up after the late August lull as the long, golden days of fall begin New England’s best season.  Horticulture Magazine’s  five-day tour, led by Horticulture’s Nan Sinton, will bring you to private gardens known for their fall beauty.  From coastal gems in Little Compton, Rhode Island to secret gardens in Vermont and a chance to learn from the masters when you visit with Wayne Winterrowd and Joe Eck at their remarkable country garden, North Hill, you’ll immerse ourselves in the best of fall in New England.

Space is limited.

To request more information on this garden program:

• Call  toll free at 866-205-0522
• Send an e-mail to gardenprograms@hortmag.com
• Or write:

Horticulture Garden Programs
F+W Publications
700 E. State St.
Iola, WI  54990-0001

Under the setting sun over Wachusett Reservoir, the culinary team of Pepper’s will offer an inspired evening featuring an enticing menu created in the tradition of the Slow Food Movement, with the best local raised or produced ingredients from area farms.  Proceeds from the evening support Tower Hill Botanic Garden.  Crystal Brook Farm from Sterling provides fresh goat cheese for the dessert.  The chefs also collaborate with Keown Farm of Sutton, Massachusetts and with John Lee from Allandale Farm in Brookline, Massachusetts, creating foods made from the best that nature has to offer.  John Trexler, Executive Director, will offer a spirited tour of Tower Hill Botanic Garden and dinner will follow.  The date is Thursday, August 20, beginning at 5:30 pm.  Members of Tower Hill – $100, $125 non-members.  Register on line at www.towerhillbg.org.  You may also call 508-869-6111, ext. 124 to register by phone, or email registrar@towerhillbg.org.

The Menu

Heirloom Tomato, Watermelon & Cucumber Stacked Salad

Roasted Assorted Variety of Baby Fingerling Potatoes

Pan-Seared Local Striped Bass with Lobster Sauce and Stuffed Squash Blossoms

Braised Short Ribs of Local Beef with Organic Mixed Mushrooms

Selection of Artisan Breads

Goat Cheese Cheesecake with lemongrass-scented stone fruits