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Now Showing, The Bay Creek Golf Resort’s Spring Bloomers !

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

Week before last I made a quick trip to Bay Creek Golf Resort in Cape Charles, VA to take some photos of a new golf home listing there and was excited to see that  the  “Spring Bloomers”  show is  well underway.  It’s my favorite time of  the year at Bay Creek,  an amazing golf community built along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay featuring  show quality landscaping,  the time when the profusion of vibrant colors there is just absolutely wonderful, total eye candy.  The color begins with a large sculpted bed of  red annuals at the entry sign and just keeps on going from there,  on and on and on,  so just when you think you’ve seen everything,  something new turns up as you round a corner.  Living in a home in one of the 10 little  villages at Bay Creek in the spring  is sort of  like being at the Philadelphia International Flower Show,  gorgeous bloomers everywhere  you turn,  the ultimate floral color palette  ( FYI,  the 2012  Philadelphia Flower Show theme is “Hawaii, Islands of Aloha”,  I’m sure it will be spectacular !  www.theflowershow.com  )

The drive from the entrance towards the gatehouse is punctuated by a dramatic water feature,  a striking,  nearly lifesize bronze sculpture of a small  boat with a waterman, his son and their Labrador dog.   This  close knit group,  shown pulling in crab pots,  portrays  a centuries old scene of  a lifestyle  of  working the waters along  the Chesapeake Bay,  crabbing in spring and  summer,  oystering in fall and winter.  Landscaped with grasses and accented by a channel marker with an osprey nest atop,  this is my very favorite Bay Creek design,  it just feels so  “Eastern Shore Virginia”  as you pass by,  a vivid reminder and a tip-of-the-hat to the Shore’s  long coastal traditions.

Once through the gate,  the full force of the landscaping is accomplished by having single lane, one way roads with wide medians dividing the two lanes,  the medians actually being miles of  landscaped  beds planted with dozens and dozens of  varieties of  trees together with understory designs of  perennial shrubs,  flowers and ground covers.  The landward side of each lane is bordered with long rows of  trees,  pin oaks, pines,  crape myrtles and magnolias to name just a few,  most of which  which are surrounded by their own colorful beds including  a long row of  huge and absolutely gorgeous peoneys just beyond the gatehouse.   Additional flower power throughout is provided by the numerous varieties of  bulbs and annuals.  The superstars of spring,  the azaleas and camillias,  there  seemingly by the  thousands,  just doing their thing,  blooming  away,  a riot of  hot pinks and bright lavendars,  splashes  of brilliant orange here and candy apple reds there,  everything in lovely contrast to the various hues and textures of green foliages.   And beyond it all,  the cool blues of the Chesapeake Bay and sugary white sands of  its beaches complete the delightful rainbow of colors that greet Bay Creek’s  homeowners every spring.   So,  if  a Chesapeake Bay home offering a golf, beach and marina lifestyle surrounded by such natural beauty appeals to you, check out our website, www.blueheronva.com for currently available properties.

                       

(Posted by Marlene Cree, licensed Virginia agent with Blue Heron Realty Co., 7134  Wilsonia Neck Dr., Machipongo, VA)

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The 78th Annual House and Garden Tour, Presented April 16th By The Garden Club Of The Eastern Shore of Virginia

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011

April 16th  this year dawned cloudy and overcast,  with the weatherman calling  for temperatures  in the low 70’s,  windy conditions in the morning and a really good downpour  beginning shortly after noon.  My husband commented that it was too bad we weren’t going to have a nice sunny day for the Garden Tour but I was just glad we were not going to have anything like the 2 feet of snow on tap that day for Nebraska, the Dakotas, Wisconsin,  Michigan, etc, etc.   ( For some reason, just knowing I am headed out for a spring day,  flowers blooming,  April showers bringing May flowers, etc. ,  feels even better  when I contemplate that snow is slamming some of the western states from here to Kingdom Come but that here on the Eastern Shore of Virginia  we are going to be enjoying some of the temperate weather of  which we are justifiably proud.  I was just so very glad not to be one of the hundreds of motorists stranded in blizzard conditions the entire night of  April 15th  on  I-80  in Nebraska.   Tax Day and a blizzard, whew !   )

Kendall Grove large yellow Colonial style home on Eastern Shore VA

Kendall Grove overlooking Mattawoman Creek, Machipongo VA

At any rate, we each grabbed a little rain jacket and headed out the door for Kendall Grove near Eastville,  only 5 minutes from Blue Heron’s  Machipongo office,  the first of three homes we planned to tour.  Located on  simply spectacular four  acre waterfront point overlooking  Mattawoman Creek,  Kendall Grove is of a distinctive Eastern Shore architectural style called  “Big House, Little House”, which as the name says involves the main house and several smaller  additions.  In the case of Kendall Grove,  this has resulted in a very pleasing home with numerous rooms, each of which offers a unique view of   the gardens, the shoreline and the wide blue waters beyond.  I thought that one of the nicest rooms was the large sunroom which overlooks a pretty little  garden enclosed with white fencing,  a very serene room where one could sit quietly,  reading a good book and just enjoy the relaxed feel of the surroundings.  It goes without saying that this cheerful yellow home is very tastefully furnished, with an interesting  juxtaposition of American and African art.  The grounds were lovely,  creatively shaped flowers beds abounding,  a pool overlooking the inlet  and one of the tallest camillia bushes I have seen,  which was just blooming its heart out for Garden Tour Day !  As we were leaving, we stopped for a moment to chat with a fellow on the back porch who turned out to be none other than Tayloe Murphy who served for many years in the Virginia House of Delegates, served as Virginia’s  Secretary of  Natural Resources under Governor Mark Warner and was a  real motivating  force behind the passage of the Chesapeake Bay Protection Act in Virginia,  a venerable gentleman indeed.

                              

Eyre Hall large historic home in Eastville VA

Eyre Hall, on the National Register of Historic Places and A Virginia Landmark in Eastville VA

From Kendall Grove we slipped south a few miles to Eyre Hall,  listed on the National Register of Historic Places and well as being  a Virginia  Landmark.  At the end of a long, long driveway, bordered by huge cedar and crepe myrtle trees,  is this  amazing house,  circa 1758, built on the shores of the famous Cherrystone Creek.  The current owner is an eighth generation decendent of the original owner and has maintained the home and the gardens in mint condition.  The downstairs, with its extensive collection of period furniture and collectibles,  has an almost museum-like quality and includes a framed thank-you letter from General Lafayette to General Robert Barraud Taylor for his kind hospitality on the occasion of Lafayette’s visit to Eyre Hall shortly after the War of 1812.  On the way to tour the upstairs we took a quick peek into a  little den/library tucked  next to the kitchen,  outfitted with a  comfy sofa,  a little TV and a wall of  books.  I love reading and I love looking at other people’s books,  I think seeing what other people read is quite interesting and says a quite a bit about a  person.  This library contains, among many others,  a great many  books on southern architecture as well as landscaping,  not unexpected considering that Eyre Hall and its extensive  gardens can be counted among  the finest in Virginia.  And I loved the upstairs–  such a contrast to  the very, very formal downstairs,  vivid bedrooms with descriptive  names like  the  “Green Room” and the  “Lavender Room”,  complete with colorful bathrooms to match.   It struck me that seeing the upstairs was sort of the Virginia gentry version of  being able to see the family quarters of the White House after touring the State Dining Room or the Oval Office ( maybe not a great analogy but it felt a bit like that.)   I would be remiss not to say that the formal gardens,  which have been maintained continuously since 1800,  are  absolutely spectacular,  a multitude of small gardens and  beautiful plantings separated by almost ancient boxwood borders.  The ooh’s and ah’s of visitors,  many taking pictures of especially interesting specimens,  were audible everywhere.  Eyre Hall’s gardens are so extensive you really must  see them to appreciate them.  According to the official brochure,  this is the seventh decade that Eyre Hall has been  the centerpiece of the Eastern Shore of Virginia Garden Tour,  so try to come next year and see its beauty for yourself.

                                           

Bellevue, a lovely waterfront home in Onancock VA

Bellevue overlooking Onancock Creek, an inlet from the Chesapeake Bay

From Eyre Hall we headed north to Onancock, our last stop of the day,  but first a bit of sustenance at Mallard’s On The Wharf,  an excellent local bistro located in the historic Hopkins General Store building.  They were,  of course,  jammed but we managed to get a nice table upstairs overlooking the water and enjoyed a most pleasant lunch of clam chowder with an excellent crabcake sandwich, ( all crabmeat,  no fillers,  as owner Johnny Mo likes to point out ).  After lunch we headed out for Bellevue on Onancock Creek.  Fortunately, the weather was still holding out- skies were overcast but no sign yet of any rain,  I was so happy for the owners  who had so graciously opened their homes for this charity event.  I can’t even imagine how I would feel about hundreds of   just in from the rain, dripping wet  visitors walking through my house  ( of course I’m sure they put carpet protectors down but still, rain doesn’t make the best situation).  Built on the shores of Onancock Creek in 1978,  Bellevue was one of the most recently built homes on the tour and included a charming pool and pool house.  It is a good example of how a modern waterfront home can have two facades- the  home as it faces the street presents as a lovely Colonial home but on the water side  its many large windows enable the owners to enjoy many fine views of their dock and the broad saltwaters beyond. The large sunroom overlooks a fenced perennials garden with criss-crossing walkways and an especially attractive  gate.  A family graveyard sits close to the pool house whose path is guarded by a very creative  creature fashioned from old clay flowerpots.  Just before leaving  I stopped to  take a photo of   “Flowerpot Person”  and another visitor,  who kindly stopped to let me finish the shots,  said  You’re going to make one of those aren’t you ?   And maybe I will…..

                   

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The Trip That Wasn’t– Missing The 2011 Cherry Blossom Festival In Washington D.C.

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

Could The Jefferson Memorial Possibly Look More Beautiful Than At Cherry Blossom Time?

Having lived in the Washington D.C.  metro area about a thousand years ago,  back in my salad days,  I have always loved the cherry blossoms each spring.  Although there are now nearly 4,000 cherry trees planted around the Tidal Basin and the National Mall/Washington Monument area,  it all started with a gift of  just 100 cherry trees to the  United States from Japan in 1912,  a gesture designed to bring the two countries  closer together.  In Japan,  the cherry blossom is the national flower,  symbolizing the renewal of life  and the traditional celebration of the blooming is called Sakura .   In the US,    the blossoms this year are seem all the more poignant  because of the sorrow continuing in  Japan during this year’s Cherry Blossom Festival,  which officially began here this past week.  It’s been a while since we have been to Washington at cherry blossom time and we had planned to drive up on Friday morning and come back on Sunday,  just enough time to walk the Tidal Basin circuit and enjoy the some of the events.  Depending on traffic  near D.C.  itself,  it’s only about a three and a half hours each way,  so a fairly easy drive from the Eastern Shore of Virginia.   As I always say,  one of the great things about living on the Eastern Shore is that our area is so central to lots of  off-Shore interesting events and activities, variety being the spice of life.

My March Blooming Bradford Pear Trees.

Well,  the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.   Murphy’s Law intervened  and so this was the trip that wasn’t.   I had been looking forward to this little weekend  but I decided that if I couldn’t go to the D.C.  Cherry Blossom Festival  at least I could do a full tour of our own yard and enjoy my very own blossoms.  As usual,  the weather on  Eastern Shore VA  has been beautiful,  cool but mild with March showers promising lots of  late March and April flowers.  In the back yard overlooking the water,  our three large Bradford pears are blooming their hearts out,  absolutely gorgeous,  with lots of  little birds darting in and out of the foliage,  enjoying the extra cover all the blooms provide.   Trees in our  little orchard are starting to bloom,  some  pink and white  petals just now showing.  In the front yard,  the camellia planted under my husband’s office window is off to a very good start,  large flowers in deep, deep pink.    But the real stars of the current show are the forsythia bushes which are simply beautiful,  planted  along  our eastern property line,  a long,  long row of blazing yellow blooms,  soaking up the sun, their long  frothy branches waving in the March winds.  So although I missed those absolutely spectacular pink blosssoms in D.C. this week-end,  I  enjoyed  my very own blossoms right here on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.  (  P.S  To see some  beautiful  photos of the D.C. cherry blossoms,  click here .)

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The First Flowers Of Spring 2011 On Virginia’s Eastern Shore. They’re Here At Last !

Monday, February 28th, 2011
Picture of deep pink camillias with golden centers and deep green leaves.

Such show-offs ! Early Eastern Shore of Virginia pink camellias with blazing gold centers, nestled among leaves of deep, deep green.

I’m not sure what it is about the first blossoms of Spring that I find so exciting,  invigorating actually.  We have such a moderate climate, 4 mild seasons,  here on the Eastern Shore of Virginia so it’s not as if we have suffered through 5 months of  the miserable freezing  weather that folks to the north and mid-west have endured.  After all, the temperature here is going to be nearly 70 degrees  today while a customer who just visited from Connecticut reported that it was snowing when they left to come down here last Friday !  And most of our winter days are sunny and pretty mild.  So really,  bad weather is  not the reason that seeing the camellias begin to bloom  puts a smile on my face every year,  but smile I do.  

Masses of pink camellia bushes at Bay Creek Golf Resort in first Spring bloom.

Throughout Bay Creek Golf Resort, masses of red and pink camellias have begun their annual Spring Show, delighting property owners and guests.

My  ” Camellia Watch”  starts not too long after New Year’s– about the middle of January I start to think, well– the camellias will be blooming pretty soon.  And by the middle of February I am truly longing for the bright reds and deep pinks of the very first flowers.  Near our Machipongo office we have a huge bush,  at least 30 maybe even 40 years old, which seems to have literally nearly a thousand blossoms every year,  in a very pale, delicate shade of  pink.  I have  several at home, both the fall blooming as well as the spring blooming,  but they are still small as camellias are  slow growers.  Number Three Daughter who lives in Cheriton, a tiny town about 5 minutes from Cape Charles,  has at least 10 amazing spring blooming camellias.  Their house was built about 1925 so their plants are  fairly old and quite large,  really more like trees than bushes,  unbelievably spectacular when they flower.  She has one variety which is quite unusual, a variegated red and white,  a  late spring bloomer,  and it puts on a real show every year !    ( I’ll post a picture when it blooms,  it’s worth seeing if you love flowers.)  One of my favorite places to see masses and masses of  blooming camellias is at  Bay Creek Golf Resort in Cape Charles, Virginia, which has just amazing landscaping throughout.  The  roads are built  with  one-way lanes  and wide  medians separate  the two lanes.   The medians are  lushly landscaped  with a huge variety of  showy plants that bloom throughout the spring and fall and  the colorful  “Knock-out”  variety roses which bloom here from early spring until very late fall.  Needless to say, the camellias there are simply gorgeous,  massed under tall pines and hardwoods. ( One of the benefits of buying a home at Bay Creek is that the landscaping throughout is so beautiful,   it’s just eye candy all the way home !  )   So, it’s official  !    The robins are here, a few gold finches have already been seen and the brightly colored flowers  of  camellia japonica  have stamped  their imprimatur upon the landscape.  Spring has sprung on Virginia’s Eastern Shore !      P.S.   Check out    www.easternshoremastergardeners.com   for some great gardening tips on gardening on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

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Singing In The Rain Here On Virginia’s Eastern Shore

Thursday, January 27th, 2011

Gene Kelly in "Singing In The Rain" -- One of my very favorite old movies

Well, maybe not exactly singing in the rain, because I have a terrible singing voice, but definitely smiling about the rain !    In a  December post describing  the Christmas 2010 snowfall we had here on the Eastern Shore of Virginia,  I mentioned that our temperate  coastal climate is definitely one of our area’s great attributes,  one of the many delightful aspects of  our coastal livestyle.   Usually when areas nearby are wrestling around with snow,  here we are having rain.  Being a slender peninsula bordered to the east by the Atlantic Ocean and to the west by the Chesapeake Bay, the proximity of these large bodies of water helps moderate our temperatures in both summer and winter,  so that we  remain  warmer in the winter than nearby areas and cooler in summer  ( plus we get delightful summer breezes blowing gently off the Chesapeake Bay. )  So even though it rained yesterday for most of the day,  pouring buckets from time to time,  light showers in-between,  I was glad to see it.  Not for us the snarled traffic, snow,  slush and 400,000 + homes without power this morning in the Washington DC metro area, with some folks reportedly being trapped last night in a 13 hour commute as described  at  www.washingtonpost.com .    Not for us the 15 inches of snow that fell in New York City and parts of New Jersey and Connecticut, that closed schools, airports, offices, etc.  as reported at  www.nytimes.com .  For us not even the comparatively puny 11 inches of snowfall in Boston which created  massive morning commute problems today.  Nope,  for us yesterday it was high temps in the 40’s and rain !   Sweet, sweet  rain, refilling farm ponds,  recharging aquifers,  giving my car a needed wash,  irrigating the long  line of  dwarf azaleas we planted last fall along our driveway,  pattering on the roof,  a quiet  sound and especially  welcome in lieu of  the snow, snow, snow piling up in other areas.  ( If you’re sick of  freezing cold, snowstorms  and ice storms but like a moderate four season climate, check out our great coastal listings on www.blueheronva.com .  ) So, yes, yes,  yes,  once again our traditional moderate climate has proved true,  no snow for Virginia’s Eastern Shore.  I’m smiling about the  rain,  just smiling about the rain.

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Out Of The Kitchen And Onto The Door— Williamsburg, Virginia Holiday Decorations

Tuesday, January 4th, 2011

What do apples, lemons, pomagranates and boxwood sprigs have in common ?    They are all part of the grand Colonial Williamsburg tradition of decorating the doors in the Historic Area with wreaths, sprays and swags that  glow with the colors of   citrus fruits and apples, brilliant reds, yellows and orange set against the dark waxy green of  boxwood or pine sprigs.   And not just fruit laden wreaths appear– in the many years that we have visited Williamsburg, Virginia  during the  Christmas season we have seen a tremendous variety of  herbs,  dried plants, cinnamon sticks, seed pods of all kinds, magnolia leaves, etc. all used to create  the delightful door decorations which  grace the  Historic Area homes each year.   One of the most memorable was a very large wreath decorated with just about every type of shell that is common to our coastal area– oyster shells with mother-of-pearl interiors showing,  pink scallop shells,  swirled whelk shells, ribbed clam shells, dark bearded mollusks, long razor clams,  tiny periwinkles combined with boxwood, holly berry sprigs and long pine cones to create a  really  interesting decoration, one that really commemorated our magnificant  Atlantic Ocean-Chesapeake Bay region.

Just about every year we make a day trip to Williamsburg over the holidays.  It’s a relatively short drive from Virginia’s Eastern Shore, about an hour and a half or so depending on traffic,  and is such a holiday treat.  ( Actually, one of the nice things about living on the  Eastern Shore of Virginia  is how many fun events are so near by and easily accessed.)  Normally we make a  day out of it,  leaving  the Eastern Shore  in time to have lunch at  The Cheese Shop or The Trellis before walking down Duke of Gloucester Street to see all the creative displays.  Everything on every single wreath is natural, no plastic red apples, no golden styrofoam pears, no water-proof  ribbons, no silk ivy — it’s back to the basics,  real items,  things that were actually grown on land,  sea or air ( lots of feathers sometimes). 

This year was no exception,  the decorations looked terrific.  A bit pressed for time, we ducked into  The Cheese Shop for a quick bowl of  potato and leek soup  (definitely a favorite Colonial recipe)  and one of  their delicious Smithfield ham sandwiches before setting out to view this year’s crop of  decked out doors.  Pineapples, the traditional symbol of hospitality in Virginia, were in plentiful supply on both wreaths and swags.  Several wreaths featured the tiny but very sweet Virginia apple called the Lady Apple,  pale yellow  with a rosy blush.  A very clever wreath decorated with large lemons featured a clay pot below, looking for all the world like a miniture lemon tree affixed to the door.  But our very favorite decoration this year was a simple but elegant wreath of  fraser fir with an overlay of a wreath made from puffs of raw cotton,  dried cotton bolls and stalks,  burlap swags plus  pink pods of some type,  all  fashioned together most ingeniously.   Tracking  back towards Merchants Square we did a quick look-see into  the holiday windows in some of  their unique shops– the  Toy Shop and the Pewter Shop looked especially grand this year.  And then zip-zip,  back home to the Eastern Shore after having enjoyed immensely yet another holiday trip to Williamsburg.

                                  

                                  

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Flowering Space Invaders Discovered On Westerhouse Creek On Virginia’s Eastern Shore

Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

 My life on the backwaters of  Westerhouse Creek near the southern tip of the Eastern Shore of Virginia is peaceful and bucolic,  coexisiting serenely with the woodland creatures that live among the thousands of acres of open land around my waterfront home.  Often I hike along a narrow and ill-defined deerpath that follows the general lay of the shoreline.  Paddling Westerhouse  Creek,  a colorful saltwater inlet from the Chesapeake  Bay,  in my kayak nearly every day has brought me many close encounters with the native wildlife.  Catching deer swimming across the creek, watching bald eagles snatch fish out of the water  and having a river otter swim right up to my boat,  whining at me to give him space — what other surprises awaited me?  After a few years I felt I had a pretty good handle on the lay of the land and felt that there wasn’t much more to discover in my woods and along the edges of fields.

Then,  lo and behold,  while placing my kayak on the post and beam rack I have  built next to the dock,  I caught sight of a bright pink object in the brown underbrush.  It was tax time,  April 15, and as I approached,  this pink object took on a whole new form,  joined by a couple of other ones sitting high and mighty on the ends of tall green  stalks.  I had never seen anything like it!  

 So,  everyday for the next few weeks,  I studied this peculiar flowering plant,  the only one of its kind anywhere in the forest where I live.  Soon  it lost its luster and the bloom faded away leaving only the stalk and big green leaves laying on the ground.  Having qualified as a Master Gardener with three months of classes and a year and a half of volunteer gardening labor,  I felt I ought to know what this strange plant was.  I asked around but finally I researched orchids and discovered that this is the hard- to- find  Lady Slipper.   Now,  after five years,  I always look for it around tax time when the tall stalks sprouting from big, sturdy, green leaves sprout the oddest and most beautiful pink blooms.   This exotic show lasts for about a month and then fades away over summer,  to return yet again the  next spring with an additional stalk and flower.

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“Sweet Baby” James Taylor’s Gift to the Birds Of Eastern Shore Of Virginia

Thursday, October 21st, 2010

Singer/Songwriter James Taylor has enabled a wonderful legacy for wild birds on Virginia’s  Eastern Shore.  On Friday, October 8, 2010, an addition to Kiptopeke State Park was officially dedicated in his name by the Director of Parks and Recreation for the state of Virginia.  Thanks to James Taylor’s  generosity,  the state of Virginia ,  in cooperation with the Nature Conservancy,  added an additional 37 acres of upland area to the park.  Kiptopeke State Park is located at the very southern tip of the Shore in an area that is vital to the migration of songbirds in their flight south for the winter from their summer breeeding grounds in the northern regions of North America.  (See a great  video of James Taylor and his wife  kayaking on Virginia’s  Eastern Shore at   www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPBTypUfgYM )

On-site Information Marker for the James Taylor Bird Habitat At Kiptopeake State Park

As the topography of the East Coast shapes into a funnel at the end of the Delmarva Penninsula so follows millions of migrating songbirds where they gather at the tip of Virginia’s Eastern Shore to refuel for the crossing of the Chesapeake Bay and for leaving the mainland of the continent to migrate across thousands of miles of the Atlantic Ocean towards Central and South America.  James Taylor personally donated $200,000., the proceeds of a 2009 fund raising concert he performed in Virginia Beach.  The land that was purchased and added to the state park was formerly agricultural in use and now will be allowed to flourish as wild bird habitat for future generations forever. Hundreds of native trees, shrubs, and grasses have been planted there to support the songbird migration. Birds truly have  “got a friend”  in   James Taylor.

The Eastern Shore of Virginia Master Gardeners donated 500 hours of volunteer labor and the plants necessary to establish a demonstration garden of native plant species, the perfect compliment to the James Taylor bird habitat.  I joined the Master Gardeners two years ago and have gained quite a bit of knowledge and experience in gardening, landscaping, plant diseases, and maintenance.  The best part is making new friends and contributing to our wonderful community.  Each new class that graduates has installed a garden in a public place and maintains it.  The  Virginia Eastern Shore community benefits also by the thousands of hours of volunteer work that the Master Gardeners donate each year in support of education and maintenance of public gardens.

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Picking Some Of Franco’s Figs

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

Picking In The Breeze

The first thing to be said about Franco  is that he is  a Northampton County icon,  an interesting,  feisty, warm-hearted  transplant from New York as of about 20 plus years ago.   Born in Italy, he still retains a colorful  Italian accent but overlaid with a strong twist of Brooklynese.   Every Tuesday night you can tune into his radio show on local station  WESR  to hear him play some classic tunes and expound on the issues of  the day.  Franco is a tireless fund-raiser for community causes,  an active member of the Chamber of Commerce,  a Sunday afternoon fishing guru to his grand kids and he bakes a mean pizza too !

The pizza part is important because Franco and his wife Kathy are the colorful  proprietors  of the Little Italy restaurant in Nassawadox, Virginia,  home to the best meatball subs ever.  (http://littleitaly.homestead.com)   When he’s not overseeing the kitchen,  Franco is busy planning Little Italy’s next fun event– possibly a night with a singer of  Sinatra tunes  or an Elvis impersonator  or  the bi-monthly Texas Hold-em Poker Tournaments,  with profits going to charity,  this month to Habitat for Humanity and the Little League.  The list of Franco’s activities and accomplishments is almost endless,  including a run for the Board of Supervisors.

So when my middle daughter was picking up a vegetable calzone from the restaurant the other day,  Franco inquired as to whether she liked  figs  and if so,  stop by his house and pick some,  his back yard  tree is loaded with an early ripening variety.  Well,  we all love fresh  figs and our two varieties do not ripen for another couple weeks so we took advantage of his offer  last Sunday.  It was a beautiful breezy day,  sun shining but not too hot,  I was in the neighborhood to take some photos of a  new waterfront lot listing and it seemed like a perfect time to round up a few figs for  breakfast.

Fruits Of Our Labours

Now the first thing to be said about fresh figs is this —  if you’ve never had one,   you’ve missed a real winner in the fruit arena !   Unfortunately,  they are very a delicate, soft  fruit  and so fresh figs  are seldom found in a grocery store– you usually have to have a friend with a tree or better yet,  your very own tree(s).   The Eastern Shore of Virginia is a great place to grow figs because we have rich soils and a mild climate ( figs don’t do well in cold climates,  freezing usually kills them, so they have to be grown in pots and moved indoors in the winter).   Here they are grown in the yard  just like any other fruit tree and they thrive without any work.   Just stick them in the ground in the late fall,  forget about them  and in a few years you’ll have a tree with all the figs you can eat and give away.    There are at least a dozen varieties here  which with  I’m familiar,  with  different sizes and ripening times,  but  the most commonly grown figs  on the Eastern Shore are the  Brown Turkey, small, only about an inch long,  the Black Mission fig, very large, almost the size of a small apple and the Celeste,  a lovely pale green variety. 

We have a huge  Black Mission tree and a smallish Brown Turkey tree in our little home orchard and they keep us well supplied with mid to  late season figs.   But Franco’s early ripening figs are a different variety,  not sure what– they remind me of those candies with a liquid center because when I  bite into one of  his  figs  they  squirt  juice from what seems to be a hollow,  juice filled center.   Absolutely wonderful ,  sweet and acid at the same time,  sort of like fresh pineapple in that respect,  after a while your tongue starts to tingle.   While my husband likes fig preserves and  dried figs as well,  I only like  them fresh,  preferably well chilled,  usually for breakfast or for dessert.   However,  served with a thin slice of salty Virginia ham  (http://smithfieldhams.com  ) ,  they make a tasty lunch or appetizer,  which is what I think I’ll do with the rest of  the  figs we picked from  Franco’s  backyard tree.   Yum, yum !

Posted in Fine and Casual Dining, Gardening, Just Having Fun, Regional Foods & Wine | No Comments »

Marinara Sauce On The Vine

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

Just Getting Started

The Eastern Shore,  especially Northampton County,  is  the prime agricultural spot  in the entire state  of  Virginia.   This has been the case since the early 1600’s  when the county was first settled by the Virginia Company of London, (remember Sir Walter Raleigh ?).   Our level, rock- free lands,  sandy, loamy soils and good rainfalls  have made farming  a profitable enterprise here.  Additionally, our mild climate, moderated by the waters of  the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean which surround this slender peninsula  on 3 sides, offers farmers the option of  being able to harvest at least two crops each year.  Often an early crop of potatoes, for example, is followed by late soybeans  and later still by a cover crop of winter rye.  Obviously this is  more profitable than the one crop to which many farmers in other area are limited.

Maintaining the rural feel of the Eastern Shore and maintaining agriculture and aquaculture as two of our prime economic engines  is an important goal as set forth in the Northampton County Comprehensive Plan,  a public-input document which provides guidance to the Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission as they  make various land use and other decisions. (www.co.northampton.va.us/index.html )    We have a lot of open space and our little waterfront/water access neighborhoods are nestled in between family farms.  Unlike the large farming operations out West where individual  farms may often be several thousand acres in size,  most family farms here are  200-400  acres and have been passed down through the generations.  Land preservation trusts are becoming quite popular here in an effort to help maintain farm land yet still offer current owners some financial benefits.

About Ready To Pick

Although,  in days gone by,  when more labor was available for hand-picking the truck crops such as strawberries,  asparagus, lima beans, etc.  which were grown here then   (in fact at one time 11 canneries operated on the Eastern Shore),  nowadays the most prevalent commercial crops are potatoes,  tomatoes,  soybeans and string beans,  with bell peppers, cabbage and cucumbers coming in a distant second.   (Of course,  our little farmers markets here have a wide range of local fruits and vegatables grown by their owners to serve  the local community .  I especially love the local peaches and cantalopes, sweet,  juicy,  completely delicious.) 

Marinera Sauce On The Vine

 Of the large commercial crops grown here ,  the most colorful are the tomatoes.  Most tomatoes are picked while still green so that they can be boxed and shipped without bruising to  grocery stores throughout the Eastern Seaboard.  Driving past hundreds of acres of  pale green tomatoes gleaming in the sun is a pretty impressive sight.   But after the second or third picking , when the very best have been harvested for slicing tomatoes,  the rest of the crop is  left to  ripen on the vine to send to the canneries for catsup,  stewed tomatoes.  V-8,  tomato paste,  etc.    You name it,  if it’s tomato and processed  on the East Coast,  then it’s likely our Eastern Shore tomatoes are adding to the flavors.   Which is why, when I am driving along the back roads this time of year and seeing large baskets  full of the pale green globes being  picked from the fields,  I know that deep red marinara sauce on the vine will shortly  follow,  the essential ingredient in the delicious Chicken Cacciatore or Eggplant Parmesan which I look forward to fixing when the cool autumn weather arrives.

Posted in Gardening, Odds and Ends, Regional Foods & Wine | No Comments »

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