fe·ral adj \ˈfir-əl, ˈfer-; ˈfe-rəl\ — In a wild state, esp. after escape from captivity or domestication.
About the garden
Located in the beautiful Berkshire mountains, in the town of Canaan, NY, right on the border of New York and Massachusetts, about 2.5-hour drive north of New York City.
According to this somewhat interactive USDA hardiness zone map where you can locate your zone number based on a zip code, our part of the Berkshires falls into Zone 5a. “5a” is somewhat colder than “5b”, although we seem to be, just as with the state lines, right on the border.
On the other hand, this updated hardiness zone map from The Arbor Day Foundation places Canaan, NY, in “zones 5-6.” Hello, confusion! Is this 5 or 6???
I guess, they wouldn’t call this thing hardiness if it were easy to determine…
And so, there’s a lot of trial and error when it comes to planting and harvesting. Which perfectly suits my psychology and personal style.
Generally speaking, the weather here tends to be 10-15F colder than in New York City, and, since the garden sits on a hill, 5-10F lower even than the adjacent Hudson Valley. But it’s a wonderful hill for gardening — it has a south-east exposure and gets lots and lots of sunshine.
About the gardener
I was born in Minsk, formerly USSR and now the capital of Belarus, and lived there until 1995 when I moved to the United States at the age of 20.
I live in Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan and teach Russian language and literature in my busy time.
Cooking and gardening make me very happy. As does traveling.
About the blog
I’m not at all a professional gardener and this blog is not about dispensing expert advice. Rather, it is about sharing my dirt-digging experiences, harvest-picking excitement, and food-induced happiness.
My horticultural savoir-faire comes from reading a few books, my devoted subscription to Organic Gardening Magazine, and from growing up with a small dacha (a Soviet-era type of allotment gardening for the urban workers that allowed people to supply themselves with fresh produce rather than relying on the inefficient government-run agriculture and distribution) where my father grew all kinds of fruits and vegetables.
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