Category: Uncategorized

Every summer when I was younger, I would make a trip up to my grandmother and grandfather’s cottage in Guilford, Connecticut. The cottage was in a secluded part of the suburban town surrounded by marshes overlooking the Long Island Sound. My grandmother or “Ma”, as we called her, was an avid gardener and very caring for the environment. She was also big in composting which she did to lower our carbon footprint and use the soil for her garden. She had two separate bins for standard trash and compost which I learned a lot about what actually goes into them.

After every meal, Ma would carefully look over our plates and tell us what bin our food scraps would go into. After breakfast, she would be careful to throw the egg shells in the compost bin while throwing out any egg or dairy scraps in the trash. She did this as dairy scraps and other fats or oils attract raccoons and rats to the compost pile. 

On top of other organic scraps that get composted like vegetables, coffee grounds, banana peels and fruit cores, I learned about other things that can be composted that I never thought could be. I remember back when I was staying over their cottage in the summer of 2009, my grandfather was reading the newspaper at the table over breakfast. As he finished reading the newspaper, he closed it up and gave it to my grandmother who ripped it up and tossed it into the bin. I was actually pretty shocked about the things that were biodegradable as she would also throw cardboard into the bin as well.

She always managed the compost bin with a great deal of care. At the end of the day, she would take the bin into the backyard and throw all the scraps into our big compost pile which was a big combination of soil and other decomposing material with an earthy smell to it. While Ma is no longer around to continue managing the compost pile, I always wanted to continue the practice of my own when I had my own apartment or house. She taught me so much about composting and I know she would love it if I continued to do it when I had the resources.

Jeff Joslyn March 8, 2021

Written by Mike Patterson

My form of gardening is much different than what most people would consider gardening. Most people when they think of gardening have a little spot where they plant flowers or grow fruits and vegetables but what I consider my garden is something so much more. All my life I have been playing baseball and the great game has taught me so many life lessons that I didn’t even know. I never thought that sports and gardening could be connected but the more I thought about it the more I realized that gardening has had a major influence on my life without me even knowing. With everything in life everyone wants to take pride in their home and that is no different with our home field. We as a team always wanted other teams to show up to our field and be in awe of how well kept it was and how nice it looked because there is nothing better than a well kept field, look at Fenway Park for example. People go there every year for the pure beauty of it. We wanted to do the same with ours as well. At the time I never even considered what I was doing to be gardening until the more I thought about it. I always just looked at it as the teatius tasks that had to be done after a long practice but the more I thought about it the more I realized that it was in fact gardening. As players it was our job to water the field, take care of the dirt, fill in holes that the New England weather created, and even plant some grass seeds in areas that were losing its grass. Since maintenance did not want to take the time to do it we as players felt it was our responsibility to maintain the field and make it presentable for our opponents. We even planted some flowers around the field to make it pop even more. I realized that not only did baseball teach me lessons but the gardening and the maintenance that took place after all those practices taught me something as well. I believe that it taught me how to be more disciplined and how to take pride in my work because everyday we were working on the field after practice. Although it is not the traditional form of gardening looking back I realized that sports and gardening can be interconnected and teach people valuable lessons. 

As an aspiring environmental scientist and policy maker, nature has always held a strong hold in my day to day life in one way or another. Ever since before I could walk, my parents have had a house on Cape in the town of Yarmouth which further cemented the roots of my love for the outdoors. We are a three minute lengths’ walk to the beach, and a ten minute drive to the local park and bike trail, allowing my childhood to have been filled with ‘the best of both worlds’. As you may imagine I was very ecstatic when I discovered the course Garden Memoirs here at Merrimack College seeing as it incorporated two main things that I love: gardens and reading! My mother and father have always made a point to tend to our gardens in both the front and back yards of our summer home. Over the years we have planted fairy roses, hydrangeas, ‘butterfly plants’ which attract Monarch’s to our garden every year, geraniums, and inpatients. As a kid and still to this day I’ve always enjoyed watching the butterflies flutter around the mini ecosystem we created while sitting on the grass in the sun. 

Though gardening can be viewed as an individual activity in some ways, I’ve found through both my own personal experiences as well as through reading Farm City that it does in fact also possess an element of community and ‘socialness’. At our local Mahoney’s, which is essentially a gardening shop with plants galore, my mom and I always run into fellow neighbors and gardeners alike on our trips there. Another instance would be on sunny, summer days when people walk past our home on their way to the beach many people in our association stop by and talk to my parents about our front yard garden and its aesthetic. 

Gardening of all kinds is a great way to spend time with your family and friends outdoors, as well as a great way to give back to your landscape. By creating a garden of flowers and or vegetables, you start to notice different types of insects and creatures that find comfort and homes within the mini world you’ve handmade. We notice a lot of baby bunnies sleeping in the shade of our rose bushes, butterflies as I previously mentioned, and plenty of pollinators such as bumblebees that spend their days bouncing from petal to petal all within the confines of our very own front yard. When I have a home of my own, I fully intend on having a garden like the one my parents have as it has provided me with so much more than just a pretty, aesthetic view.

Written By: Joshua Dennehy

Seed savers Exchange is an organization from Decorah Iowa that connects thousands of home gardeners, farmers and many more through the worlds largest exchange open to all. Seed Savers Exchange collect, store and regenerate rare heirloom seeds. These seeds are collected so that they can be preserved and grown the right way. With proper education Seed Savers Exchange want everyone to have the same option to grow rare heirloom seeds. While doing so, this is to help educate all types or famers or gardeners, then distribute to gardeners everywhere. Everyone from all over will be able to grow such rare seeds.

Organizations that are here to educate young and eager gardeners are such a big part of society. Without true education people would not know how to plant and harvest rare seeds. Seed Savers Exchange is crucial to all gardeners because they inform you about how to preserve and seed save. Not wasting seeds is what will help the environment. The youth need to understand the right way to plant a seed then when the crops are ready harvest while saving seeds as well. Programs like these want to help exchange many types off seeds for everyone to use. Teaching not only kids but young adults, will help change the outlook on seed saving.

Seed Savers Exchange program can develop such education in farm towns that needs it. Anyone who looks into there website to gather information on how to plant seeds the right way or even save seeds will learn valuable information. Information that can help the environment and especially creating healthier crops. Seed Savers Exchange is another organization that wants to educate and help many communities.

Check “Seed Savers Exchange” website below to learn more.

https://www.seedsavers.org

Written By: Joseph Jorgenson

Love and Carrots is an organization located in Washington D.C that provides, installs, and teaches people how to tend to Gardens. It is a non-profit organization that helps less fortunate communities in many ways. One of them is growing their own produce in a healthy and natural way so that people don’t have to buy it from a grocery store. Another way “Love and Carrots” helps to better the community is it aims to keep kids off the streets and gives them a hands on learning experience that will teach them valuable skills to better themselves and their community.

Programs like “Love and Carrots” are so crucial for spreading knowledge of gardening while also helping less fortunate youth population. These programs are so crucial to inner-city neighborhoods because of the lack of “green space” in cities as well as the stereotype of inner-city behavior of these kids. It is so important to find these kids meaningful and healthy activities to participate in. By giving valuable lessons on how to tend to these gardens, it spreads loves and distracts inner-city kids from the troubling world around them.

Non-profit urban gardening companies are vital to the development of healthy foods as well as healthy behaviors in the community. If everyone had a garden to tend to it would help the community in varies ways. “Love and Carrots” is just one of many companies looking to better the community and the future.

https://www.loveandcarrots.com/services

Above is the website for “Love and Carrots”. Give it a look.

Written by Eliza Whitfield

Pies are a type of food preservation that my family has utilized for years. Pasty has been a much-loved meat-based pie that originated in Cornwall, England. Pasty is an affordable, long-lasting meal that was originally used by miners and their families. In the past, pasties were served in the shape of a semi-circle for the convenience of a handheld meal that could be easily taken into the mines. Pasty usually consists of a small portion of meat or beans and a variety of vegetable choices that can easily be grown in a home garden: potatoes, carrots, onions, turnips, parsnips, etc. 

My family has passed a pasty recipe down for more than five generations. We make the pasty in a pie tin as opposed to a traditional semi-circle. I cannot count the number of times I made pasty with my grandma and my mom. We would spend all day making dough and slicing vegetables, then sit around the table to share the delicious meal. On occasion, we would drive to my uncle’s house and deliver him a pie or two for his family. It is a tradition that brings my family together and provides happy memories that we all cherish.  

My family’s recipe: 

• ½ lbs meat — usually beef
• 5-6 potatoes — cut into thin slices
• 2-3 carrots — shredded
• 1 onion — diced, then mixed with the meat
• Pie crust:
  • 2 cups flour
  • ½ cup shortening or butter
  • Pinch of salt
  • Enough water to make paste

To make the pie crust, combine the ingredients in a bowl, using the water to make the dry ingredients stick together. Once the ingredients are mixed, place the dough in the refrigerator to rest while slicing the vegetables and browning the meat. The meat should be cooked, before being placed into the pie to ensure the pie will not contain raw meat, as well as a way to drain excess grease. 

Once all the ingredients are ready, separate the dough in half. Roll both halves of the dough into a circle and place one half in a nine-inch pie tin. Then layer the vegetables and meat repeatedly until the pie is rounded at the top (potatoes, carrots, meat, potatoes, carrots, meat). Finally, place the remaining dough on top of the pie, crimp the edges, and slice 2-3 air holes atop the pie. 

Cook the pie at 350* for roughly 45 minutes.

This pie, if sliced moderately, can provide multiple meals a day for 2-3 days. Pasty tastes delicious when it is eaten both hot and cold. 

Written By Drew MacInnis

This summer I was lucky enough to meet a coworker named Layne with an incredible little farm at his home. Layne and his family had moved to New Hampshire a few years ago all the way from Oklahoma. Living in a more rural area of New Hampshire with an abundance of land they realized the wonderful opportunity they had to start raising animals. There was already a barn on their new property and with a preexisting love for horses and horseback riding, horses had to be the first animals in their new chapter. Instead of going out and purchasing young foals they decided to go and rescue two adult horses to give them a fresh start at life. 

Horses if you didn’t already know eat a lot. Whether it be vegetables or loads and loads of hay they eat, and this is where Layne steps in. He is the oldest of all his siblings and takes on a lot of responsibility when it comes to caring for the horses. He is often the one making trips to go pick of hay bales and other resources for them.

After having the horses for a while an opportunity presented itself for the family to also rescue two ponies, one of which lost an eye. After seeing the beautiful ponies, they knew they had to have them. In order to do so they had to build a separate enclosure for them as they couldn’t be housed with the horses, which Layne had a big part in building. Once this was finished they added the two ponies to their family.

It doesn’t stop there though, as there was another addition to their growing animal family. A little farm surely wouldn’t be complete without some chickens. This too required some more building for Layne as a chicken coop needed to be made. Once this was completed it was time to add some more rescued animals into the picture. At the current moment they have 17 chickens in which they harvest the eggs from. They do not harvest the chickens for meat, as they truly love animals and just want to give them a happy life for however long they have left. It is great to see the difference Layne and his family have made in the lives of animals who at one time had no hope and no sense of belonging.