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Fruity tropical Scotch Bonnets on pizza, the healthy pepperoni! Gardens plots are the best part of living in the Pines. However, hot summers have caused me to shift away from conventional crops to those that are more heat tolerant. Bitter gourd, yard-long bean, and round Thai eggplant are...

Howdy Bill, Great to hear from you! Jerseyman, Lost Town Hunter, and I participated in a McPhee Pine Barrens retrospect a couple years back. With the benefit of a half-century of hindsight, he was surprisingly good on Pinelands geology details...

Why living around nature could make you live longer The researchers found that people living in the greenest places — that is, people who had the most vegetation within 800 feet of their homes — had a 12 percent lower rate of mortality from any non-accidental cause than people living in the...

I buy a case of 48 gassers every season. You need to go through at least half-a case (24 gassers) over a period of a couple days to be effective (at least in the beginning), then spot treat whenever a new tunnel appears. I hit key points around the perimeter at least three times to achieve...

The July 08, 2016 New Yorker Radio Hour featured an episode called "The Wisdom of John McPhee" where the author reflects on a lifetime of writing. Here's a link to that podcast: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/tnyradiohour McPhee's book The Pine Barrens is credited as the inspiration for the...

...and fruit, putting the vine back in Vineland!

That looks great! My garlic, Transylvanian (really), was a bust. Onions and garlic don't like my soil. Leeks do well but are ambrosia to voles (as are artichokes). Instead I grow lots of scallions, chives (including a strain reputedly from our ancestral Carpathian village) and garlic chives...

Oh so close...

Enormiss, The USGS map excerpt (below) marks a singular Inskeeps "Blue Hole," the only one I am familiar with at that site. There are a few others like Dog Heaven, the Danger Hole and Mt. Misery. I do not want to leave an impression they are commonplace...

This year the the pine vole population seems to be under control. I tried every trick in the book, and found Giant Destroyer Smoke-Bomb Gasser to be the only reliable remedy (Sodium Nitrate 50% Sulfur 38% Charcoal 9% Other Ingredients 3%). I buy one case over the 'net every Spring, which seems...

I am of the opinion that Pinelands “blue holes” are not as mysterious as thought, but are natural features that mark locations of ancient strong springs called icings (aka aufeis – German, naladi – Russian). During cold, dry and windy periods of the Pleistocene, most Pinelands streams flowed...

Jerseyman inspired me having pointed out archive photos of Richland and Milmay Schools, my two- and four-room almae matres! It was wooden rulers, not a hickory switch, that one teacher at Milmay would shatter across hooligans knuckles, and it hurt! New Jersey. State Board of Education. 1916...

These are specialized primitive (extremophile) critters, like the ones found in acid waters near coal strippin's; bacteria that turn streams into orange sludge. They work best at low pH, an environment akin to ancient pre-carbonate rich Earth. Reduced iron is their fuel, which they oxidize...

Cedar or "black" water is a biological process that is related to temperature, pH, and iron availability. I would look to these variables first. The warmer the water temperature the darker the water due to increased biological productivity. Pine Barrens streams run clear in winter. A higher pH...

Sea bass – deep fried with the skin on, sweet 'n sour; tog – gently poached in court bouillon. Did anyone say eel? Now I know why a lot of Lenape chose to stay here rather than leave!!! There is an obscure reference in a Google copy of a local family history (Swing 1889: 76) that confirms my...

I believe the lake was dammed to supply the furnace works, well before the switch to paper manufacture. Weymouth Lake (1) shown on 1839 NJ Geological Survey map, before Lake Lenape (2). According to Vermeule (1894: 278), the Weymouth dam had a fall of 13-feet, netting 160 gross horsepower...

Well worth the extra effort to restart! Wow, the perfect breakfast garnish when fried in olive oil; the way they're served at Rodio's Kitchen in Folsom. S-M

Here is the same garden plot ten-days out: Added are parsnips, tomatoes, tomatillo, sweet & hot peppers, eggplant, squash, yard-long beans, bitter gourd, Chinese okra, baby corn, cucumber, Asian melon, and okra. The late-April green beans were ever-so-slightly kissed by May frost, but are...

Interesting find! It appears to be a crossway that leads to the Old Baker Place, which seems like a reasonable place to dam a creek. You will have to line up the Mare Run section to the Wright (1867) Weymouth exceptions map at the Historical Society of Hamilton Township in Mays Landing. S-M

Lynn, Dead River is just an abandoned mega-meander of the ancient Great Egg Harbor River – an oxbow. The toponym is well and alive in the oral tradition. I don’t remember ever seeing it put on a map, but many a paddler have taken a wrong turn to arrive at a dead end. Mare Run (OED: means "a...