This is the last story in a three-part gardening series featuring master gardeners and other experienced gardeners in Western Massachusetts. Each month this summer, you’ll meet different experts, learn about their gardening lives and get advice on everything from pest control to haircuts for lavender. A big part of gardening is community — people sharing tricks, trowels, plants and a general love of gardening —and these stories are an extension of that ethos.
No matter how green your thumb is, this month’s column includes something for everyone. If a summer of endless lawn mowing has you scheming to get rid of the turf, you’re in luck. Gardenista Karen Fisk shares her No. 1 grass-to-garden tip, which resulted in a flowering space included in last month’s Holyoke Historical Society Garden Tour. Our second grower is master gardener Jim Frank, who cares for vegetable plots in Northampton and Wendell. One of only two rhyming gardeners I’ve met in my life, Frank wraps up the column with a poem of tips about late-summer veggie gardening.
Thank you to the wonderful, local experts who shared Garden Talk tips this summer. Thank you to every reader too. However you enjoy greenery and the garden community (planting outdoors, misting indoors, visiting botanical gardens, following Instagram “plant-fluencers,“ joining plant swaps), happy growing and more flower power to you!
Karen Fisk
Karen Fisk is passionate about gardening, and her day job is working as executive director of the Stowe Center for Literary Activism in Hartford. (Submitted via Karen Fisk)Submitted
Meet Karen Fisk. When it comes to the increasingly popular practice of replacing a front lawn with a garden, Fisk is no newbie. About eight years ago, she began transforming her large, grassy lawn in Holyoke into a perennial garden and before that, she planted up her Amherst front yard.
Fisk’s day job is executive director of the Stowe Center for Literary Activism in Hartford, which explores the legacy of Harriet Beecher Stowe and all who advocate hope and freedom. And it turns out, Stowe was also an avid gardener. “Historically, Harriet Beecher Stowe kept cut flower gardens as well as gardens of single colors,” Fisk says.
Q: How did you begin gardening?
Fisk: I started gardening as a young mom with a tiny plot in Milltown, New Jersey. I bought a zillion of one kind of flower, and thought it was the most beautiful garden ever! In Maine, I tackled the clay soil to add five garden beds populated by plants from friends and school plant sales. I started to understand that different soils need different amendments. In Amherst, whenever I opened more garden space in my front lawn, plants from my neighbors would show up.
I read about gardening, and I talk with people. I learned a lot from the master gardeners at Springfield Museums when I worked there. They are remarkably talented and generous with their wisdom. And I learned from the UMass extension folks — especially their permaculture gardeners. Looking around at other gardens, I better understood variety and heights and started to shape gardens that had depth and bloomed over the course of the season.
Q. Why did you decide to transform your lawn into a garden?
Fisk: I saw the front yard as an exciting opportunity to have a big garden. I think large gardens you can walk through and completely immerse yourself in are so beautiful and make you feel good. I also was keen to have less lawn to mow.
Q. What’s your tip for readers who want to start the process?
Fisk: My tip is cardboard — and patience! When you use cardboard, you don’t need to dig out your garden or remove the grass. To begin, I decide on the area that will become the garden and spread cardboard out into layers — ideally two layers, overlapping so the grass doesn’t grow through. If I have only enough cardboard for one layer and I am eager to get a garden started, I’ll use newspaper. Put a layer of newspaper down and use the cardboard for your second layer.
Once the cardboard is down, trim the outer edge into curves to give the garden shape. I spread compost 2-3 inches deep over the cardboard. Next, unless the forecast calls for rain, I water the area. I only water the cardboard once; nature takes care of the rest. The cardboard decomposes with time and, even as the grass dies off, the organic materials continue to thrive. The soil will be wonderful and with each year will get easier to work.
I dig holes for the initial planting the same season I lay the cardboard down. The first planting is a little of a struggle because you have to dig past the grass layer and then shake out the soil, but by the next season, the entire bed is very easy to manage.
Karen Fisk has transformed her Holyoke lawn into a lush garden. (Submitted)Submitted
Q. Please take us on a tour of your gardens.
Fisk: My gardens are very enthusiastic, a little chaotic, and I build in energy and height from the edges to the center and back out again. The front yard garden is packed with plants, many native pollinators, with peonies in a clump near the front beside a path — also joe pye weed, boneset, blue globe thistle, roses, some very insistent plants that are really pretty but I don’t know what they are. I’ve just added to a shade garden using hosta, catmint, and astilbe from the back and side gardens. Irises, lilies, and astilbe are throughout all of the gardens. And interspersed are boxwood shrubs because I like their look.
Thanks, Karen! Is there anything you’d like to add?
Fisk The very best part about gardening is the connections it offers — to the land for certain and getting to know plants even if you don’t know their names. Even better is connection to people. Folks stop to look at the gardens. If I am outside working, they say thank you and say they look forward to seeing what comes up next. That feels really good.
Jim Frank
Jim Frank is a master gardener who cares for vegetable plots in Northampton and Wendell. (Submitted)Submitted
Meet Jim Frank. He started gardening 10 years ago, thanks to his son. Frank explains that his son planted a vegetable patch in their front lawn in Longmeadow, much to the neighbors’ dismay. When his son abandoned it, Frank took over. These days, Frank recently earned his master gardener badge and cares for vegetable plots in Northampton and Wendell; the latter to grow produce for a Good Neighbors food bank. For the past couple of years, Frank has also gardened with the Northampton Community Garden group from the Western Massachusetts Master Gardener Association (WMMGA) to grow food for the local food bank.
Q. Why do you enjoy gardening?
Frank: As an almost retired surgeon, I love working with my hands, seeing things grow, fixing things, solving problems…
Q. What’s your vegetable gardening tip for readers?
(Editor’s note: As his answer, Frank chose to write the below poem.)
Musings On a Season (Almost) Past
The land had been cleared, the untilled soil tested
After mulching and planting, we finally rested.
Then watching with vigilance, the pests on alert,
We fertilized, weeded until our backs hurt.
Now summer wanes, and you ask “what is next”?
I’ll opine on a few points, that I believe best
Take what seems fruitful, you may deadhead the rest.
First, finish the harvest of squash and blue kale.
A cover crop? Oft’ oats or buckwheat prevail.
Cull out the dead plants, cut the others back later
Spare a few stems for the fall pollinators.
But the best part I saved and now must address.
For the pantry’s near empty, despite last year’s success.
Marinara sauce and jam, the family’s demanding,
I head to the kitchen, it’s time to start canning!
A large pressure cooker, though some may deem daunting,
Is quick and leaves most harmful microbes a wanting.
A water bath (my second choice), many others prefer
Beware dry oven canning, the inner temp may not surge.
At last, looking back, I pause and I ponder
What thrived? What failed? Why did it? I wonder.
Praying next year’s plan might bloom from these reasons,
I retreat to the TV and the fall football season!
If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
Comments are closed.