Oops, all asters at the Ashby Market, you're not allergic to goldenrod, and more!

Next market: Ashby Farmers’ Market

Don’t forget, our Ashby market is this Sunday, August 25th, 2024 from 9am to noon on the Ashby MA Town Common.

Our theme for this market is “fall color 🍁” – or, as I like to call it, “oops, all asters.” 😂 I’m going for the broad definition here – anything in the family Asteraceae is game.

This includes asters (of course), goldenrods, white snakeroot, and more – anything with those composite flowers! These species are generally late bloomers, providing brilliant golds, purples, and blues (and white, too!) all the way into October.

I can’t promise they’ll all bloom this year, but they are long-lived perennials and will provide color for years to come.

Here’s what we expect to have available:

• Bluestem/wreath goldenrod (Solidago caesia)
• Blue/heart-leaved wood aster (Symphyotrichum cordifolium)
• Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum)
• Coastal plain joe-pye weed (Eutrochium dubium)
• Large-leaved wood aster (Eurybia macrophylla)
• New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) 🆕 - as seen in the featured image above!
• New York Ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis)
• Seaside goldenrod (Solidago sempervirens) - seaside not required!
• Smooth blue aster (Symphyotrichum laeve)
• Stiff/flax-leaved aster (Ionactis linariifolia)
• Spotted joe-pye weed (Eutrochium maculatum) - only 1 left!
• White snakeroot (Ageratina altissima)
• White wood aster (Eurybia divaricata)
• Yarrow, multi-hued cultivar (Achillea millefolium)

We’ll also have aster and goldenrod “zoigls” – see the Buy Plants page for an explanation of what those are.

You can see an album I put together of many of these species on our Instagram:

View this post on Instagram

We’ll also bring:

• Wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana). It’s in the rose family Rosaceae, but they look beautiful right now, and are already starting to create runners and baby plantlets! Now is a great time to plant them for next year.
• Common evening primrose (Oenothera biennis)
• Non-native annuals on deep markdown ($1 each or 6 for $5): San Marzano tomatoes, habaneros, basil, and a couple of jalapeños
• Non-native perennials on deep markdown ($2 each or 3 for $5): peppermint, lemon balm ‘Mandarina’, lavender, thyme, sage, rosemary

If you have specific requests beyond this list, email us at lise@redtrilliumgardens.com right meow to make sure we pack it tomorrow morning!

As ever, native perennial pints are $5 and quart/two quart containers are $10, and native annuals are $4. We accept cash, Venmo, and credit cards.

Newly available!

We are now offering New England aster – possibly my favorite of the asters. Its deep purple is a perfect complement to fall goldenrods. To quote Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass:

If a fountain could jet bouquets of chrome yellow in dazzling arches of chrysanthemum fireworks, that would be Canada Goldenrod. Each three-foot stem is a geyser of tiny gold daisies, ladylike in miniature, exuberant en masse. Where the soil is damp enough, they stand side by side with their perfect counterpart, New England Asters. Not the pale domesticates of the perennial border, the weak sauce of lavender or sky blue, but full-on royal purple that would make a violet shrink. The daisylike fringe of purple petals surrounds a disc as bright as the sun at high noon, a golden-orange pool, just a tantalizing shade darker than the surrounding goldenrod. Alone, each is a botanical superlative. Together, the visual effect is stunning. Purple and gold, the heraldic colors of the king and queen of the meadow, a regal procession in complementary colors.

You’re not allergic to goldenrods

With all this talk of goldenrods, are you saying to yourself, “I can’t plant goldenrod; I’m allergic”? It might even be on your mind recently, since fall allergy season has kicked into gear. (Oh lordy has it!).

Good news: you’re probably not allergic.

This common myth is one of mistaken identity. Goldenrods typically flower at the same time as both ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) or mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), both of which are highly allergenic.

Goldenrods and mugwort/ragweed are also in family Asteraceae, so at a glance, it kind of makes sense. But it all comes down to pollination. Mugwort and ragweed are wind-pollinated. Because of that their pollen is very light and small, abundant, and widely dispersed. This makes it easy for it to be inhaled and cause allergies.

But goldenrod is insect-pollinated, and as a result, its pollen is much heavier and larger. This makes it almost impossible to get into your respiratory system – short of, say, a bee flying up your nose. Even in that rare event, there’s no evidence that goldenrod pollen is particularly allergenic.

If you’ve ever looked at an allergy report, you’ll notice the categories include: ragweed, tree, and grass. Grasses are – almost by definition – wind pollinated; trees often are (but not exclusively). Note that there isn’t a category for goldenrod! (That said, there isn’t usually one for mugwort, either!)

I stop short of saying that it’s a physical impossibility for you to be allergic to goldenrod – because plants are weird, as are allergies. But let’s say… 98% chance you’re not allergic to goldenrod pollen; you’re actually allergic to ragweed, mugwort, or some other wind-pollinated pollen.

So that means you can enjoy beauties like this bluestem goldenrod without fear of setting off your allergies!

Hope to see you tomorrow in Ashby for some allergy-free plants! 🤣

Oh, one last thing:

Email address corrections

If you’re receiving this email for the first time despite signing up much earlier in the year… I apologize. There were two people whose emails were entered incorrectly into our system. I’ve corrected them (I think!) and here’s hoping this’ll reach you this time.

• Updates