Northeast Gardening: The far west of the Northeast, 0 by Kathleen

Kathleen wrote:
Hello from extreme western NY. We're on the edge of the Midwest, but still considered Northeast unless you're selling milk in which case we're the Mideast!

Being in the ancient foothills of the Alleghenies and just east of Lake Erie, we have an interesting climate zone and soil. Most of the hill tops (which is where I find myself at 1800 feet) are part of the traditional snow belts and have what is broadly known as Volusia soil - very heavy clay loam with heavy clay under that and rocks below that. The area I am in is what was once the shoreline of an ancient ocean, and we have a goodly amount of rock outcroppings. We have a dairy farm on 132 acres of hill and our first crop every year is rocks. We also have a very tiny quarry down in the creek valley that was used to cut out the foundation stones of the original buildings, all long gone. Here is a shot of what we've done with a few of them.