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Archive for the ‘Recipe’ Category

This fall season has been excellent for clamming and oystering on Cape Cod. However, the usual Linguini with Clams and Clam Chowder had been served in our kitchen quite enough and needed some spicing up. Luckily for us, a restaurant we frequent serves something like this excellent dish that follows.  Although I had an inkling of the ingredients, […]

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It makes sense to discuss these two plants in the same blog, as they are both very common, look very much alike, and can often be found next to one another… Both forms of chickweed have leaves that are elliptical in shape and alternate on the stem. Common chickweed leaves are hairless while the mouse […]

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The common name of this natively European plant comes from an old tale about Queen Anne, a fervent lacemaker, who pricked herself on a needle, causing a drop of blood to fall on the lace. The flower structures of the plant are very much lace-like. In some of the flowers there is indeed a tiny […]

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Phytolacca americana is a tall fast-growing perennial, native to the eastern US. Currently pokeweed is starting to show greenish-white flowers, and in late summer and fall the plant will produce dark red berries that grow even darker over time. The juice of the berries was once used as an ink substitute, and to add color […]

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There are some 250 different flowering plants in the genus Rhus (currently, as new research may lead to breaking up this group into smaller segments), but unfortunately we only seem to remember the infamous ones: Poison ivy (Rhus toxicodendron), poison oak (Rhus diversiloba) and poison sumac (Rhus vernix) can be quite memorable. They all contain […]

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Well, I am not really assessing anything – I only wanted to highlight the fact that I am taking a break today from yard and garden work. Not that the garden is not assessment-worthy: There have been some accomplishments and early successes: The woodland garden in front of the house holds pretty much all the […]

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I have to admit I kind of like the sight of these little annual plants in early spring – they are one of the first to flower, and now in mid May they are already dispersing seed into the yard. This little plant is actually pretty much impossible to get rid of. You can pull […]

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I almost missed these plants altogether. Another couple of weeks and they would have lost their flowers and the leaves would have been overgrown by neighboring plants. Eastern trout lilies are low-growing plants that form colonies of plants of different ages. The leaves have the characteristic mottling that give the plant its name – although […]

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This native violet has taken over one area of my yard almost exclusively, and is spreading into the lawn. I don’t mind, but if you’re a gardener that needs to be in control, I can see issues developing between you and Viola sororia. Woolly blue violet rhizomes can grow quickly, and the many flowers produce […]

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This is the first year I have trillium blooming in the woodland garden. I bought some plants from the New England Wild Flower Society and integrated them among the ferns and wild ginger. Right now, bent trillium (Trillium flexipes) is showing off its white flowers. Woodland gardens don’t come into their own without trillium present, […]

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