community garden under snow cover

These are clips of my community garden, the Belmont Victory Gardens, that I took from a vimeo by David Sprogis: Rock Meadow. Rock Meadow is a 70 acre piece of conservation land in Belmont that includes the Victory Gardens. It's a really beautiful vimeo of the area taken from the air.



My garden plot is right in the center of the lower photo.

dreary field

the meadow

This is the meadow next to our community gardens. Its been overcast and rainy the past couple days. The late fall wildflowers are blooming and the leaves are starting to show a little fall color in places. There's a big tree at the left of the meadow photo that came down in a windstorm last week.

The meadow was mowed about a month ago. It was waist high and just filled with flowers before that. Mostly tansy and milkweed. Some asters, goldenrod, Joe Pye weed and wild garlic. Every year it has a different mix of flowers.

the meadow on the last day of summer

Too bad summer can't last forever.

beautiful summertime!

(though still spring a few more days ...)

milkweed

Someone recently asked me about where to find milkweed. I've been looking. These photos are from Rock Meadow in Belmont - along Mill Street. The milkweed there is beautiful and just starting to bud. The Monarchs will be happy! I've also found smaller stands of milkweed off of Trapelo Road in Waltham in the area of the old Met life buildings.

February field

This is Rock Meadow, the big open field next to the community gardens. There are gradual signs of spring here. Some buds are swelling, the chickadees are singing, and lots of robins are hopping about the shorter mowed areas apparently finding edibles. Our snow has nearly disappeared, even as the mid-Atlantic is being buried today. We have 5-inches predicted in the middle next week.

evening field

Here's the field next to my community plot. I thought it looked beautiful in the setting sunlight tonight. The field was mowed yesterday and the gardens have that rich smell of freshly mowed hay.

October 15: I thought I'd add the images below.



The original (unadjusted) image is on the left. The one on the right has only shadows and exposure adjusted. Neither of these look like the scene as I remembered it, so I made more adjustments. Here's how I remember the scene:



But then my eyes aren't so good and maybe it wasn't quite so colorful, so the top photo is my compromise.

Note added Oct 28: Can you believe it - there's a Port-O-Potty in the middle of this lovely field today! Actually that's great. The Friends of Rock Meadow is having a two weekend volunteer clean-up event. I hope to be able to help out next Sat. (Don't really want to us the seat in the middle of the field though....)

fall fields

These are the fields next to our community gardens where Skippy likes to run. Everyday they turn a bit more golden. The white asters just opened this week. The Joe Pye weed and Queen Anne's Lace are turning brown. The monarchs are still here and seem to prefer the asters. The bees like the goldenrod. Some patches of goldenrod are just covered with bees.

Rock Meadow Conservation Land, Belmont
butterflies (Lepidoptera)