Home and garden section
CLOSED! The Swap Shop at WSWMD on Old Ferry Road, Brattleboro will be closed on Saturday, October 30 as it is the 5th Saturday of the month.
Swap Shop will be open on Nov. 6 for shopping only, Nov. 13 for donating only and our last day before closing for the winter will be Nov. 20 for shopping only.
SCHEDULE & HOURS:
Shopping Days- 1st & 3rd Saturdays of the month
Donation Days- 2nd & 4th Saturdays of the month
Another SHOPPING ONLY DAY at Swap Shop at WSWMD on Old Ferry Road, Brattleboro on Saturday, October 16, 8:30 am to noon. ALL ITEMS ARE FREE. Many new donated items were added last Saturday. Photos of some available items are posted on Facebook’s Brattleboro, Vermont group page. Many Christmas decorations!
SCHEDULE & HOURS:
Shopping Days- 1st & 3rd Saturdays of the month
Donation Days- 2nd & 4th Saturdays of the month
SHOPPING ONLY DAY at Swap Shop at WSWMD on Old Ferry Road, Brattleboro is here again! Saturday, October 2, 8:30 am to noon. ALL ITEMS ARE FREE. Many new donated items were added last Saturday. Photos of some available items are posted on Facebook’s Brattleboro, Vermont group page. Halloween and Christmas decorations!
SCHEDULE & HOURS:
Shopping Days- 1st & 3rd Saturdays of the month
Donation Days- 2nd & 4th Saturdays of the month
Another SHOPPING ONLY DAY at Swap Shop at WSWMD on Old Ferry Road, Brattleboro! Saturday, September 18, 8:30 am to noon. ALL ITEMS ARE FREE
SCHEDULE & HOURS:
Shopping Days- 1st & 3rd Saturdays of the month
Donation Days- 2nd & 4th Saturdays of the month
If a month contains 5 weeks, the Swap will be closed
Hours are 8:30am-12pm. (Large donation loads may not be accepted after 11:30am)
SHOPPING ONLY DAY at Swap Shop at WSWMD on Old Ferry Road, Brattleboro on Saturday, August 21, 8:30 am to noon. We are overflowing with donated items and must make room for more! A few of the many items available are dressers, chairs, lamps, kitchenware, puzzles, outdoor furniture, DVDs, books, file cabinets-2 drawer & 4 drawer….ALL ITEMS ARE FREE
SCHEDULE & HOURS:
Shopping Days- 1st & 3rd Saturdays of the month
Donation Days- 2nd & 4th Saturdays of the month
If a month contains 5 weeks, the Swap will be closed
Almost entirely edible weeds from my raised beds, with just a few kale leaves included.
I am seriously NOT uprooting weeds, just cutting them down to within an inch or two from the ground so that they can grow back. The idea is that if they do not block sunlight from my crop plants, and if the soil is so rich that it can feed plants even if they are close together, then the weeds will not hurt my crops. In fact, at a couple of inches tall, these weeds act like mulch, keeping the soil from drying out.
The fourth installment of the 2020 Real Estate and Personal Property Taxes will be due on May 17, 2021 by 5:00 PM. Payments made after May 17, 2020 will have an additional 1% interest, as well as an 8% penalty added to the unpaid balance.
The Town of Brattleboro utility bills are also due on May 17, 2021. Payments made after May 17, 2021 will have an additional 1% interest, as well as an 8% penalty, added to the unpaid balance.
Vermont grants for barn stabilization and restoration. Be sure to see the manual before starting your project, because to be eligible the project may not have been started before the application was submitted.
Application:
The following dates have been scheduled for Brattleboro’s curbside Spring Leaf Collection. All locations will be picked up each Friday:
Leaf Pick Up Date
ALL RESIDENTSFriday, April 16, 2021
ALL RESIDENTSFriday, April 30, 2021
FALL LEAF COLLECTION SCHEDULE
The following dates have been scheduled for Brattleboro’s curbside Fall Leaf Collection. All locations will be picked up each Friday:
Leaf Pick Up Date
ALL RESIDENTSFriday, October 23, 2020
ALL RESIDENTSFriday, November 6, 2020
In that all things, even the virus, work together for the good we increased in our farming efforts during our time of “Shelter in Place”. Love gave us the faith to plant three gardens here in Oak Hill! We discovered seed that had been left behind by others and did germination tests. Some of these seeds were 12 years old but they were viable and sprouted. Quickly this Spring we had an improvised little greenhouse! Our children love small beginnings that is if we do. Faith and enthusiasm is always contagious just like good leaven!
With an uptick in online ordering, I’ve had to work a bit harder to avoid using Amazon. Jeff Bezos doesn’t need any of my money, and just about everyone else does, so I make the effort.
Search engines conspire against this quest. Search for almost anything and the top results, plural, are Amazon. It’s annoying.
When I use it at all, I use Amazon as a free product research tool. I’ll look at product specs, manuals, reviews, Q&As… and then go somewhere else to buy it.
Brooks Memorial Library is part of the Growing Hope Campaign!
Come to the Main Street library entrance from 10AM – 5PM, Monday – Saturday, up a sign that says sunflowers, growing hope, or even a picture of a sunflower and we will give you a packet of seeds for you to plant! You can also request seeds when you order items through our curbside service.
The Growing Hope Campaign is a partnership between Brooks Memorial Library and Building a Positive Community in Brattleboro, to distribute sunflower seeds to people who would like to have some hope growing, wherever they are. You can now get sunflowers from Brooks Memorial Library, with curbside pickup. Packets may also be found at the tiny libraries on Spruce Street, Coombs Street, and near the Oak Grove School. Please let us know if they have run out!
Every year about this time, I grapple with the dilemma of what to weed. It’s not that I want my garden to be overrun with volunteers, but over the years I’ve become more and more averse to killing living things. This includes plants, with which I’ve always had an affinity. I think I was a plant in a former life, and probably something weedy.
This year’s problem plant is a grove of daisy fleabane which seeded in on barren ground near where I had misguidedly let their mother bloom the year before. There they all are, her strong and healthy children, forming their sturdy basal rosettes with taproots to Eden. Part of me says, pull ’em up. Another part doesn’t feel like it — I tried pulling one up by the roots the other day and it wouldn’t budge. But the strongest part of me, the part that has the upper hand at the moment, is suffering moral pangs at the thought of all those soon to be dead plants in a pile next to my empty flower bed.
Brattleboro Tree Warden Dan Adams is the 2020 recipient of the Vermont Urban & Community Forestry Program’s Hamilton Award, which honors a Tree Warden “who has significantly advanced the goals of urban and community forestry through successful forestry practices, effective conservation planning, increased citizen engagement, and active public education.” The award is named for Dr. Larry Hamilton, the former Tree Warden in Charlotte, VT.
A private consulting forester, with over 35 years in the forestry business, Dan was nominated by Brattleboro Director of Public Works Steve Barrett.
Gardens provide continuity and hope every year, and the Brattleboro Floral Arts & Garden Club shines as a happy reminder that natural beauty continues in our community.
New president (and local mystery writer) Lynne Kennedy is the club’s new president. As the annual April meeting was cancelled this year, and in response to social distancing requirements, outgoing Co-Presidents Lynn Kuralt and Melissa Kuralt passed the keys “on a ten-foot pole”. Other new officers include Vice President Shelia Kinnare, Recording Secretary Frankie Knibb, Corresponding Secretary Judith Wagenbach, Treasurer Libby Lafland and Librarian Carlene McCarty.
Looking for top quality bare-root fruit trees and unusual perennials to start or expand your home orchard or garden? Place an online order by April 30, with pick up by appointment May 2 or 3 at Scott Farm Orchard!
In response to COVID-19, Scott Farm’s annual Fruit Tree and Perennial Sale will take place online this year (instead of on May 2). We are offering a wide selection of bare root and potted fruit trees and perennials to include: Heirloom Apple Trees, Common Apple Trees, Stone Fruit and Pear Trees, Potted Fig Trees, Blueberry Bushes, Heirloom Apple Scions, Orchard Products, and Perennials.
The following dates have been scheduled for Brattleboro’s curbside Spring Leaf Collection. All locations will be picked up each Friday:
Leaf Pick Up Date
ALL RESIDENTS: Friday, April 17, 2020
ALL RESIDENTS: Friday, May 1, 2020
Back in my childhood, paper towels were regarded as an expensive commodity, to be used rarely, if at all, and only on the most spectacular of spills. For a spill to be worthy of a paper towel, a Paper Towel Emergency had to be declared unanimously by all present. Otherwise, we were supposed to use the kitchen sponge or a dish cloth to wipe up the offending area.
Over the last five years or so – through open houses, tours, and educational events – hundreds of members of the Brattleboro Community have visited our home under construction in West Brattleboro. We are once again opening it to the public in hopes of sharing our journey, learning from visitors and sharing what we know about local and natural materials, energy-efficient building practices, and working in the building field.
