SUSAN HUTCHINS-GREENE 

 grew up in Northwood. "I always 

 remember my grandmother's gar- 

 den," she recalls. "My parents 

 had a vegetable garden and I can 

 remember weeding it and snap- 

 ping beans and hating it, but my 

 grandmother grew flowers and I 

 just loved being there." 



Her grandmother died thirteen 

 years ago at the age of 84, but 

 some of the plants she grew — 

 single pink hollyhocks; bearded 

 iris with pale yellow standards 

 and deep purple falls — grow in 

 her granddaughter's gardens. And 

 other plants evoke the memory. 



The gardens are on a cleared 

 Deerfield hilltop at the end of a 

 mile-long dirt road. Susan and 

 Michael Greene have lived here 

 now for ten years. 



Susan has always grown plants 

 here (she sold some and gave 

 most to friends), but in the last 

 three years, she's worked to build 

 her interests into a more busi- 

 ness-like endeavor. The result is 

 Growing Things, a retail opera- 

 tion selling annuals, a variety of 

 shade plants, hard-to-find perenni- 

 als, and herbs. 



The material is highly person- 

 al. Susan looks for hardy plants, 

 but with something that interests 

 her — a distinctive texture, a par- 

 ticularly aromatic scent, long- 

 lasting blooms. She prefers sub- 

 tler, less insistent flowers. She 

 grows mallows — her favorite has 

 a white flower with a touch of 

 pink inside it. She remembers it 

 in her grandmother's garden. She 

 grows Dame's Rocket [Hesperis 

 matronalis] and the blue and 

 peach varieties of Jacob's Ladder 

 [Polemonium caeruleum)...and 

 anemones — hers are "white, early, 

 and invasive." 



But not everything is subtle — 

 she likes delphmiums and grows 

 300 or so each year. Her favorites 

 are 'Summer Sky' and 'Black 

 Night' (a dark florescent purple). 



Susan grows organically: she 

 belongs to the Natural Organic 

 Farmers' Association (NOFA) and 

 has recently became a Certified 

 Organic Grower in the State of 

 New Hampshiie. 



She collects some of the seed 

 herself. She believes itrongly in 



GROWING 

 THINGS 



Organic, Evolving, 

 Professional 



working with local people and 

 purchases a lot of what she buys 

 from Fedco Seeds, co-op seed 

 packers located in Waterville, 

 Maine. All seed comes from 

 organically grown plants. 



THE SEASON BEGINS in early 

 February when she starts the first 

 seeds in the house. She uses 

 Fafard mixes (they are approved 

 for organic gardening); the seeds 

 sprout quickly and — maybe be- 

 cause the house is heated with 

 wood — she has no problem with 

 dampening off. Susan attributes 

 the high germination rate (there's 

 no bottom heat) to the addition 

 of fish emulsion to the growing 

 media. When she starts putting 

 flats on the bed (late February), 

 her husband suggests that maybe 

 it's time to open up a green- 

 house. 



She has two houses. The larger 

 is a 17x40 double-poly heated 

 with a propane sag Modine heat- 



THE PlANTSMAN 



18 



er. She keeps the temperature at 

 about 60. As the weather gets 

 warmer, she simply leaves the 

 doors open — being on top of a 

 hill gives plenty of circulation. 



She keeps two 55-gallon 

 plastic barrels filled with water 

 in the house, and uses the room- 

 temperature water (with a water- 

 ing can) for the seedlings. 

 ("I know it sounds time-consum- 

 ing, but if something's not going 

 right, you can see it before it be- 

 comes a major problem.") Later, 

 after she transplants the seedlings 

 into 6" Belden Jumbos (she uses 

 this larger pot so she won't have 

 to transplant twice), she does use 

 a hose. This year she's planning 

 to install a chapin watering sys- 

 tem on some of the benches. 



She foliar feeds fish emulsion 

 (mostly in the greenhouses) and 

 liquid seaweed (in the orchards 

 and gardens) from a back pack 

 sprayer. 



When the greenhouse is 

 overflowing — mid-March — she 

 begins filling the second, a 14x36 

 hoop house that gets good late- 

 afternoon sun. When needed, she 

 uses a portable kerosene heater. 

 She can't use this with vegetables 

 (the fumes kill them), but finds it 

 doesn't bother perennials at all. 



The plants are put outside in 

 an area protected by the two 

 greenhouses and the house. The 

 Greene's present house was origi- 

 nally intended to be a garage. 

 The frames of what were in- 

 tended to be doors are floor-to- 

 ceiling windows that look south 

 from the kitchen onto five acres 

 of cleared land. Their plan was to 

 connect a house to the northwest 

 side of this structure. Footings 

 were already poured when an 

 adjacent piece of land was bought 

 by a lumber company. Nothing 

 has happened yet, but Susan and 

 Michael realized that someday 

 their view of wooded hills might 

 be a view of clear-cutting and de- 

 velopments, so they moved their 

 house site to below the hilltop, 

 to where the original farmhouse 

 stood. (They're now in the pro- 

 cess of building.) But the time 

 spent wasn't a complete loss: be- 

 cause of the large areas of con- 

 crete and gravel (and ledge) — and 



