Kitchen Garden

HARRODSBURG, Ky. — Patrick Kelly has just completed his first year as executive chef at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. This spring, he initiated a seed-to-table dining program that transformed what had been a display garden for historical interpretation into a working garden to serve the kitchen. “It’s a chef’s dream to have a huge garden outside the kitchen window,’’ he says. Located about 25 miles southwest of Lexington along the palisades of the Kentucky River, Pleasant Hill was once the third largest Shaker community in the United States.

HARRODSBURG, Ky. — Patrick Kelly has just completed his first year as executive chef at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. This spring, he initiated a seed-to-table dining program that transformed what had been a display garden for historical interpretation into a working garden to serve the kitchen. “It’s a chef’s dream to have a huge garden outside the kitchen window,’’ he says. Located about 25 miles southwest of Lexington along the palisades of the Kentucky River, Pleasant Hill was once the third largest Shaker community in the United States.

Down on the Farm . If you share her picky-picky perfectionism, you’ll love it, too. Wannabe farmers can get their hands dirty throughout summer and fall at the Avon acreage harvesting gorgeous strawberries, blueberries, peppers, tomatoes, watermelons, and more. Napa East Massachusetts, Rhode Island : If you drive the entire 182-mile Coastal Wine Trail from Westerly, Rhode Island, to Truro on the Cape in one day, you may not have time to visit all nine wineries.

Down on the Farm . If you share her picky-picky perfectionism, you’ll love it, too. Wannabe farmers can get their hands dirty throughout summer and fall at the Avon acreage harvesting gorgeous strawberries, blueberries, peppers, tomatoes, watermelons, and more. Napa East Massachusetts, Rhode Island : If you drive the entire 182-mile Coastal Wine Trail from Westerly, Rhode Island, to Truro on the Cape in one day, you may not have time to visit all nine wineries.

BECKET - Drive 5 miles up the hill and through the woods, then step onto the funky porch of the Dream Away Lodge and you'll see color everywhere. Tacky knickknacks, beer signs, books, and art decorate the place - even the bathrooms. There are dogs and cats. A vase of fresh flowers or a plant graces each dining table with its unmatched settings. Dream Away is casual, warm, and efficient. It wears its shabbiness with joy. In the 1940s Maria Frasca bought the colonial farmhouse with her three daughters.

BOOTHBAY, Maine - For some of us, the perfect road trip would be to follow spring and watch the crocuses, snowdrops, hyacinths, daffodils, tulips, and irises open again and again. If you're looking to say it with flowers for Mother's Day next Sunday, head up here to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. The daffodils may be past their prime in Boston. But at Boothbay's 248-acre gardens - the largest in New England - you should find nearly 8,000 daffodils in bloom, as well as witch hazel, serviceberry, viburnum, and other early bloomers.

A New York appeals court rebuffed an attempt to hold Remy Ma ’s former record label accountable for the rapper’s shooting of an acquaintance in 2007. Yesterday’s ruling notes that a Universal Music Group Inc. affiliate ended its contract with Remy Ma nine months before she shot Makeda Barnes-Joseph outside a Manhattan nightclub. The Grammy-nominated rapper was convicted of assault and other charges, and is serving an eight-year prison sentence. They’re engaged Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton (above)

BOOTHBAY, Maine -- Since the first public gardens began on the grounds of palaces, there is a certain justice to the royal scale of a new one under construction here, where earthmovers and workers with wheelbarrows are transforming wooded hillsides and open fields above a river. The Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, which began with 128 acres bought by seven local residents (who took out second mortgages on their houses and raised $500,000 in 1996) is moving into its prime; an $8.5 million fund-raising campaign is halfway home.

At El El Frijoles (no connection beyond the pun to L.L. Bean) husband and wife Michael Rossney and Michele Levesque serve taquería takeout or sit-down from a barn in their backyard. "Maine is a state with some pretty gnarly Mexican food, pretty terrible stuff," says Rossney. "We're trying to do a little bit better. " The couple starts with ingredients from close to home. They buy handpicked crab from Rossney's mom's next-door neighbor on Deer Isle, eggs from a farm down the road, and harvest chard, squash, tomatoes, and strawberries from their...

Raise a glass HARPOONFEST This annual celebration of local beer serves up Summer Beer, UFO White, and the brewery's newest year-round suds, Rich & Dan's Rye IPA. Local music groups include Will Dailey & the Rivals, Mean Creek, and Jenny Dee & the Deelinquents. May 18 (5:30- 11 p.m., doors close at 9:30 p.m.), May 19 (2-9 p.m., doors close at 7:30 p.m.). Rain or shine. $20 (includes a drink ticket and souvenir cup). 21+. The Harpoon Brewery, 306 Northern Ave., Boston.

A New York appeals court rebuffed an attempt to hold Remy Ma ’s former record label accountable for the rapper’s shooting of an acquaintance in 2007. Yesterday’s ruling notes that a Universal Music Group Inc. affiliate ended its contract with Remy Ma nine months before she shot Makeda Barnes-Joseph outside a Manhattan nightclub. The Grammy-nominated rapper was convicted of assault and other charges, and is serving an eight-year prison sentence. They’re engaged Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton (above)

BECKET - Drive 5 miles up the hill and through the woods, then step onto the funky porch of the Dream Away Lodge and you'll see color everywhere. Tacky knickknacks, beer signs, books, and art decorate the place - even the bathrooms. There are dogs and cats. A vase of fresh flowers or a plant graces each dining table with its unmatched settings. Dream Away is casual, warm, and efficient. It wears its shabbiness with joy. In the 1940s Maria Frasca bought the colonial farmhouse with her three daughters.

At El El Frijoles (no connection beyond the pun to L.L. Bean) husband and wife Michael Rossney and Michele Levesque serve taquería takeout or sit-down from a barn in their backyard. "Maine is a state with some pretty gnarly Mexican food, pretty terrible stuff," says Rossney. "We're trying to do a little bit better. " The couple starts with ingredients from close to home. They buy handpicked crab from Rossney's mom's next-door neighbor on Deer Isle, eggs from a farm down the road, and harvest chard, squash, tomatoes, and strawberries from their...

BOOTHBAY, Maine - For some of us, the perfect road trip would be to follow spring and watch the crocuses, snowdrops, hyacinths, daffodils, tulips, and irises open again and again. If you're looking to say it with flowers for Mother's Day next Sunday, head up here to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. The daffodils may be past their prime in Boston. But at Boothbay's 248-acre gardens - the largest in New England - you should find nearly 8,000 daffodils in bloom, as well as witch hazel, serviceberry, viburnum, and other early bloomers.

BOOTHBAY, Maine -- Since the first public gardens began on the grounds of palaces, there is a certain justice to the royal scale of a new one under construction here, where earthmovers and workers with wheelbarrows are transforming wooded hillsides and open fields above a river. The Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, which began with 128 acres bought by seven local residents (who took out second mortgages on their houses and raised $500,000 in 1996) is moving into its prime; an $8.5 million fund-raising campaign is halfway home.

Serves 4 Given Michelle Obama’s ongoing message about healthy eating, it’s no surprise that the first family prefers sweet potatoes without marshmallows - and without even an extra tablespoon of sugar. The first lady has described her family as sweet potato lovers. This fall, she harvested the potatoes from the White House Kitchen Garden, sometimes with the help of children from the Bancroft and Kimball elementary schools in Washington. At the harvest, after the potatoes were loaded into a wheelbarrow, one boy pointed to an especially large sweet potato and said, “Whoever likes that must...

Q. I have some nice old floors, but with several pet stains, big black areas. Is there an easy way to get rid of them? Also, my kitchen garden window’s interior sill was varnished with seven or eight coats , but now it is turning black. How can I fix that? AL CARON, Marion A. Those stains have penetrated the finish and are deep in the wood. No guarantees, but sand to the bare wood with a floor sander, bleach the stain with household bleach or oxalic acid (use plenty of ventilation)