We all love fall mums. The vibrantly colored flowers and sturdy plants signal the beginning of autumn for most of us. We buy them by the dozen to decorate porches and front steps, plant in containers and window boxes, add to fading gardens, use as centerpieces and give to friends. Then, at the end of the season, most of them go into the compost. The next year we do it all over again.

Gardening organically is easy, healthy, economical and fun. I have been an organic gardener all my gardening life, which began when we moved to Andover in 1967. Shortly after we arrived, my father, an enthusiastic gardener, sent me his entire collection of well-read Organic Gardening magazines. Those boxes of magazines, a borrowed copy of Ruth Stout's " How to Have an Organic Garden Without an Aching Back" and and a book club edition of Rodale's "Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening" became my first gardening library.

  The further we get into this new century the more we hear about how disconnected children are becoming from the natural world. More and more children are spending long hours indoors with their tv’s, computers and video games, leading virtual lives rather then real ones. Long days at school are followed by after-school, programs, daycare or being shuttled from enrichment activities to home, homework and bed.  There seems to be little free time for kids to just muck around, roaming the neighborhood discovering beetles and butterflies, listening to birds, smelling the air and noticing swelling buds opening into lovely blossoms. It’s heartbreaking to think of all the stumbled-upon magic moments that so many children won’t have to remember.  Those little discoveries often become part of us, with the memory returning when needed to help shape our adult lives.   

In the life of a New England herb gardener, winter is the time for books and catalogs. When winter is doing it’s worst outside the window, herb gardeners pull favorite books from the shelves, gather up new garden catalogs and curl up in a cozy spot to plan and dream about the coming spring. It’s a good time of year.

Adelma Simmons, author and herbalist, opened her classic book on growing herbs in New England by noting that herb gardeners were happy in all seasons of the year. I have always agreed with her.

“Putting food by” was a familiar term to our mothers and grandmothers. They knew September and October were harvest months, the time to preserve fruits, vegetables and herbs for use during winter and early spring. They may not have all done it, but they all knew the traditional activities that came with the end of summer-- canning, pickling, jelly-making, drying and freezing.

I took the train to New York city last week to attend a Garden Writers of America meeting at the Queens Botanical Garden (http://queensbotanical.org). Despite the fact that I spent a lot of time in New York city as a child visiting relatives, I have never been sure where, or what, “Queens “ is. I certainly didn’t know there was a botanical garden there.

Herbs and children are a great match. Children learn by looking, touching, smelling and tasting. Herbs need to be rubbed, sniffed and tasted to be fully appreciated. Put the two together--weedy, plain looking herbs and bouncy, curious children--and magic happens.

The further we get into this new century the more we hear how disconnected children are becoming from the natural world. More and more children are spending long hours indoors with their televisions, computers and video games, leading virtual lives rather then real ones. Long days at school are followed by after-school/ daycare or being shuttled from enrichment activities to home, homework and bed.

There is a lot to be learned from plant names. Most familiar garden plants have more than one, usually a formal name and a common name. Sometimes there are several common names, which can change from region to region and century to century.

“Happy are herb gardeners through all the seasons and the years. Their’s is a life enriched with rare fragrances to be enjoyed at dusk and dawn and in the heat of noon. “ ADELMA GRENIER SIMMONS