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Gardening Report

There are natural ways to kill your weeds

Renée Meyer

Thu, Sep 27

Category:

Gardening Report

In these times, when America’s most popular chemical weed-killer, Roundup, is undergoing more scrutiny and Block Island looks for a means of eliminating its use, it’s a good time to look into more natural solutions. One of the hallmarks of late autumn is the unmistakable smell of vinegar emanating...
Garden Report: Japanese Barberry and ticks

Renée Meyer

Sun, May 28

Category:

Gardening Report

What’s not to love about a drought- and deer-tolerant ornamental shrub with colorful foliage, plentiful red berries and cute, although inconspicuous little flowers? Quite a bit, it seems. Japanese barberry ( Berberis thunbergii ) was brought to the United States in the late 1800s. Fast...
Better luck next year

Renée Meyer

Sat, Dec 31

Category:

Gardening Report

It’s been awhile since there’s been a Garden Report. It was a year of drought and being busy with other things, it was a good excuse to drop out, however temporarily, of the 2016 gardening season. With the water being diverted almost exclusively to the vegetable garden, even the weeds in the flower...
The Garden Report: The value of a rain garden

Renée Meyer

Fri, May 27

Category:

Gardening Report

You may have heard the term, but what exactly is a rain garden? After a presentation by Lorraine Joubert of the University of Rhode Island Cooperative Extension Service on storm water runoff, my takeaway was that it is a glorified name for a ditch. Storm water runoff was the subject of a joint...
Time to plant the peas

Renee Meyer

Sat, Mar 12

Category:

Gardening Report

There has been a somewhat dubious advertisement playing over the airwaves of late. To the background song of “Food, Glorious Food,” from the musical “Oliver,” the Cox cable ad would have us believe that in future years we will all be able to use a 3-D printer to print out exactly what we wish to...
Garden Report: The art of pruning

Renée Meyer

Sat, Feb 6

Category:

Gardening Report

Last weekend gave us zero excuses not to get out of the house and do something around the yard, at least here on the eastern side of the island where all traces of the blizzard known as Jonas have disappeared. Well, not quite all of the traces — there were some tree limbs down, some minor, some not...
The Gardening Report: Juice into jelly (or popsicles)

Renee Meyer

Fri, Sep 25

Category:

Gardening Report

It’s hard to ignore the abundance of fruit on Block Island this year. The old apple trees in the yard — survivors of the Hurricane of ’38 — are all but groaning with the weight of their fruit bending the branches towards the ground. Pears are plentiful, and Concord grapes are still, as of this...
In the garden with Edie Blane

Renée Meyer

Sat, Jun 27

Category:

Gardening Report

The idea of a garden lush with blooms all season long is one that many gardeners aspire too, and yet few actually achieve. For most of us there is a particular stretch of the season when our gardens shine, when they are at their most glorious, when they are most worthy of being shown off. That time...
Don't worry (too much) about those tent caterpillars

Renée Meyer

Fri, Jun 12

Category:

Columnists, Gardening Report

At the risk of starting what may be the great caterpillar controversy of 2015, I will say, simply, do not worry too much about the tent caterpillars that are currently appearing in many locations throughout the island. The presence of the caterpillars’ tents in trees seems to elicit an automatic...
How to start a garden

Renée Meyer

Sat, May 2

Category:

Columnists, Gardening Report

Gardening can be one of those traps akin to weight-loss resolutions made in the deepest dark of December: dream too big and you will never even begin. One’s first garden shouldn’t be a goal; it should be an experiment, the purpose of which should simply be to determine if you like to do it. The...
The Garden Report: Learning from Steinbeck

Renée Meyer

Fri, Feb 27

Category:

Columnists, Gardening Report

On Feb. 17 and 18, the Island Free Library and Island Bound Bookstore hosted a 76 th year anniversary celebration of “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck. Memories of reading the book 40 years ago just wouldn’t suffice. It would have to be read again. What struck me was how much of the book I...