Native squash bees pollinating a pumpkin blossom.  There are approx 4000 species of native bees in North America.  Many, if not most, of them better pollinators than the non native honey bee.  Our native bees tend to work earlier, later, and under adverse weather conditions more so than the beloved honey bee.  The advantage of […]

This summer we honored a long ago promise to “some day”  plant pumpkins.  The choice: an heirloom variety, known as Red Warty Thing.  It’s actually quite pretty, and is a good eating pumpkin.  That is all we knew about pumpkins at planting time, and we learned that much from the back of the seed packet.  […]

The rare and plentiful rains of this summer are receiving mixed reviews in North Georgia.  Areas with impervious surfaces, parking lots and shopping zones, are flooding nearby churches, homes, and restaurants.  Subdivisions are discovering their retention ponds for the first time as they too overflow. However, pastoralists are admiring green pastures in July.  Grazing animals […]

Sharing recipes has long been a connecting point for families, friends, and neighbors.  And yet the recipe box has disappeared from kitchen counters.  Why?  Food network shows suggest that we are cooking with great enthusiasm and yet the fast food industry has taken over  our town roads and highway exit zones.   Why don’t we […]

The simple pleasure of berry picking is multiplied by having fewer berry bushes.  HF has two blackberry bushes near the potager garden, a short walk from the kitchen porch.  In less than ten minutes we have enough for a smoothie, cobbler, muffins, or a mojito (patriarch’s idea).   These two Arapaho bushes over a four week […]

May through August is Hydrangea Season at Hedgerow Farm.  It begins with the Oakleaf Hydrangea, Hydrangea quercifolia, our one and only Oakleaf is placed next to the house between two porches and alongside the flagstone path.    It receives only morning sun and is delighted with that arrangement.  We are northeast Georgia, hot and humid.  Zone […]

A conversation on the farm today saddened me by its careless talk in regards to the created world.  It was a land-deal-forestry-only-as-a-commodity discussion.  In the words of Wendell Berry a “cut and run” kind of economy.   One person suggested that trees grow (yes) and that we’ll always need toilet paper. Sigh.  Land being considered only […]

The tomato hornworm shown here is clearly the bad bug. If you like tomatoes. It destroys tomato plants leaf by leaf. The white protrusions on its back are egg sacs of a parasitic wasp, the good bug. At this point, the hornworm’s fate is decided but we resist the urge to squash or otherwise remove […]

The Jacob Sheep of Hedgerow Farm are raised on pasture with no grain feeding.  The lambs remain with their mothers until 4 months of age.   We name our sheep, knowing them as individual creatures who belong to the farm community of sheep, cows, horse, chickens, and livestock guardian dog.  We shear them once a year, […]

Turkeys and chickens foraging across the lawn, pastures, under trees and shrubs.  free range.  We know what it looks like when we see it.  The USDA’s definition of free range:  “Producers must demonstrate to the Agency that the poultry has been allowed access to the outside”.  Hmmm.  We read the definition again and become suspicious […]