When does the garden year begin?

I was reading a quilting blog the other day that suggested that it is beneficial to go away from blogs, pinterest, facebook and other diversions from time to time to get your mojo back. So I guess after being away for awhile, you could say the mojo is moving.

I spent some of my time away reading and being with my family. My favorite read over the winter was a wonderful book, " Animal, Vegetable Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver. This was the most informative book that gave me new energy for my endeavor to feed my family healthier food and increase the amount of food I produce in my garden.

We are all aware of the effects of chemical sprays on our food and the additives placed there as a way of preserving the food. How can that be good for us or our children and grandchildren. Each Sunday I have two beautiful daughters and their five boys and husbands and my sister come for dinner. I want to feed them not only good food, but nourishing food as well. It helps to think of the meaning of that word before I plan dinner.

I come from a long line of women who grew and canned their own food. Last year we preserved a significant amount of our vegetables, fruits, pickles and jams for the year. This year I want to do even more. The favorite thing for the boys is to run to the garden to pick a fresh carrot, a snow pea or an ear of corn. Even in July they are looking for a stray strawberry. They are learning to identify plants and where their food comes from. I plan to post the progress of this endeavor and try to keep the posts timely.

Sarah's raised beds

Our youngest daughter built raised beds last year.


Sarah's Cilantro



She is growing some fabulous cilantro and her tomatoes and cucumbers look great!  



We just completed some raised garden beds for our oldest daughter to begin her vegetable venture.

My plan is to put down on paper (as in blogging) some of the gardening information I have accumulated from a lot of gardening/farming DNA. It should be fun to do this as a family. And maybe we will even have a little State Fair Competition.

It makes sense to begin at the beginning of the garden year right? But when is that? If you think about it, something is always going on in the garden, and like the Cauliflower Spring post shows, gardening begins when you are ready to begin. It is never too late to begin. Even in the dead of winter when the only thing to eat in the garden are the wintering carrots and leeks you can plan and dream of the tasty things to come.

Hope to see you here again soon.

Cauliflower Spring

This spring in the Pacific Northwest was the wettest and coldest that I remember.  Of course I say that every year.  But this time I mean it. Usually we get a February two week respite that includes much sun, warming temperatures and workable soil.  Of course the real rain hasn't started yet so of course the soil is workable.

And then the rain begins.  We received hardly any rain during the winter months. It was a bit snowier and colder than usual. We had below freezing temperatures for at least a month of the winter.  So I thought the only thing that would survive in the garden would be the carrots. The winter cabbages and winter cauliflower were growing, but producing nothing. So I just let them grow thinking I would pull them up when the warmer weather was here.

March Cauliflower

The first of March brought a couple of days of sun and I thought I would go work in the strawberries just to get outside. And to my surprise there beautiful and white was the most beautiful and bug free head of cauliflower I have ever seen. I have since harvested seven beautiful heads of bug free cauliflower. Next year I plan to grow them the same. Plant in October and harvest in spring. No cabbage moths, no aphids. What a great surprise!

Spring is More than a Date on the Calendar.

We have had an early spring here in the Pacific Northwest. And my abundant backyard is beginning to grow. We actually started things in January when temperatures were in the 50’s with lows of 42 degrees. I don’t believe we have seen any frost since before January 25.

In January we cut down some wild plum trees (not good for anything but pectin), trimmed the clematis on the south fence, and gave the Wisteria a haircut in hopes of a bloom here and there. If it doesn’t bloom this year then I know the 10 year old vine will never bloom. If anyone has any helpful tips, let me know.

February remained dry and warm and we chipped the tree branches, pruned rose bushes, pulled strawberries from the walkways, and planted peas outside. Inside broccoli, leeks, red onions, basil and parsley are beginning to show themselves.

March has been exceptionally warm. The peas are beginning to show and I have managed to get spinach, radishes, lettuces, carrots and walla walla onions planted. Today I planted a rhubarb start. Can’t wait for the rhubarb crisp!

Flowers are not absent from this picture. Violets are blooming. They are one of my grandmother’s favorite flowers so I always think of her. Plus she had a sister named Violet and one named Myrtle. My grandmother was named Florest (nickname Flo). So great-grandma Whitney must have loved flowers herself.

And of course my most favorite of all……my treasured bleeding heart! My sister brought me a start of my grandmothers plant several years ago. I delight in the fact that it comes out of the ground blooming.! Isn’t that the most spectacular sign of spring?

Winter is Almost Over

Winter was busy…….no time for blogging. Time only for putting the garden to bed, finishing up the last ends of canning and beginning the season of gift making. Then on to baking and eating, baking and eating and baking and eating. In between I worked on some ongoing genealogy projects. And now as March approaches I find myself five pounds heavier and extremely lazy.

But with the proverbial February false spring, I have begun to venture outside and check the garden’s status. The garden has survived quite well. My garlic is coming along nicely. (Labeled clearly, I might add). Strawberries are coming up, and the pea bed looks nearly ready to go.

My seeds arrived last week from the seed company and my onions arrived today. I am so excited to get going! I’m sorry to say I missed the Great American Bird Count in February. It fell on Valentine’ s Day which was a Sunday and all the family was here for dinner. So next year I promise to count and I promise to let you know ahead of time.

Today the pond called for clean up. All the accumulated leaves and the overgrown shrub near the in-flow needed to be trimmed. My best friend and husband Rick put on his fishing waders and climbed into the pond to get the winter leaves and trim the shrubs. It was fun to watch the fish swim around his legs. I was surprised to see that we now have seven fish! Even after the great Heron scare!

Hope you all had a comfy warm winter. You’ll be hearing more from me as the ground thaws.

In Search of the Glove

I went everywhere I tell ya….they want way too much for gardening gloves. After gardening my fingers off, I needed something that accommodates fingernails. But I didn’t want to spend a fortune and I wanted comfort and the ability to thin carrots with gloves on. Know what I mean?

The first hurdle is cost. What is too expensive? $20, 25? I thought under twenty for a year of gardening would be reasonable. And boy did I have a hard time finding the glove that fit the bill. Finally here they are.

My new Ethel glove. Leather tips for the nails and a very comfortable nylon for the body of the glove. I thinned my winter carrots just fine. $16.95 at Home Depot. I’ll let you know if they last a year.

BIRD SEED (FINALLY PART-TWO)

Part-one was about birds....part-two is the seed story

Boy is there a lesson learned here. Never publish any part of a two-part narrative before at least drafting all the pieces. My intentions were good, my excitement high and content absolutely riveting. And then the harvest came……..First there were beans and then the tomatoes; so many tomatoes. The potatoes were astounding and seemed to appear even after I was sure we had dug them all. Pumpkins, acorn squash and butternut squash were stored away. I even remembered to label the garlic after planting. And then the rain. And now that my beloved garden has been put to bed for the winter, I can write again.

Let’s not forget the title of this little musing…..Bird Seed in two parts. You can see in part one how much I love the birds in my garden. I enjoy feeding them; making the suet, cooking the hummingbird food and keeping the seed tray full. And that leads me to other seeds in my garden. I have always felt the pull to collect my own seed and move along on the path toward subsistence farming. So far I have collected and planted the easy things; marigolds, sunflowers, geraniums and beans. I always give up as my results the following year are not as great as I expect them to be.

But this year I had a few delightful experiences. The first was my lettuces. I had planted so much I couldn’t get it harvested before it bolted. One morning early I saw the lettuce flowers wide open. I was so amazed at how simple and beautiful they are. The color is a yummy cream yellow with a deep yellow center . They have tiny spoke-like petals and oddly enough they look just like lettuce flowers should.

The russet potatoes surprised me as well. They bloomed right on time and I knew that under that rich earth the little spuds were forming. And while admiring this favorite flower of mine, I noticed small round pods forming. I ran to the computer to find out these were indeed potato seeds. Did you know that if you plant them like any other seed you will get (surprise!) many different kinds and colors of potatoes. They do not breed true so no telling the size, shape or color you will get. I think that is one of the most fun facts I’ve gathered in my gardening life.

The final surprise seed in my garden is the seed of Hope. Every gardener has it. Even after the worst drought year or an especially pest challenged year, the gardener hopes that next year the garden will have less weeds; it will be more abundant and we will all be better gardeners.

Happy fall and get some rest. Spring will be here before we know it.

BIRD SEED (A TWO-PART NARATIVE)

Part One – An Amazing Two Day Bird Count

I just have to talk about the birds that have frequented my yard and garden the last few days. The variety is astonishing since it’s mid-summer, usually a slow time of year for bird watching. In the hot summer I see the usual song sparrows, blue jays, doves etc.

But two days ago after watering, I took a break on the deck. We’ve had the air conditioner on in the house for two days so I wanted to hear outside sounds without the constant hum of that cooling beast. While listening I heard the Chickadees in the birch tree. Their two-tone bodies and two-tone call (Chick-a-dee dee dee dee dee) always make me want to mimic their call. Try it. It’s fun.!

A short time later we were looking through the binoculars to see if the splash of yellow in the pear tree was a ripe pear. Turns out it was a beautiful Western Tanager. Probably resting from feeding on the wild plums that are dropping over the lettuces! The Tanager is so yummy colored; like a pineapple/red-orange Popsicle. This is only the second I’ve seen in my yard.

Earlier the same morning in the same pear tree I had seen a Nuttal’s Woodpecker. They are like a Downy Woodpecker but have a zebra like back. Truly amazing to see him perpendicularly stalk the tree trunk searching for bugs.

Also in the pear tree was a very shy juvenile Blackheaded Grosbeak. The defining bright yellow and black distinctions are just now starting to break through the dun-colored baby down/feathers. They are so big and clumsy as youngsters. Kind of oversized looking with beaks too big for their bodies. And they are very wary of people.

Next day I heard the stern cries of two Towhee. Cheeeeeeeee Cheeeeeee. I’ve seen them lately. They seem to be darker than our usual Rufous Towhee. They were calling to their single offspring in the feeder. Towhees are traditionally ground feeders; the ones that kick up the dry leaves and scratch like chickens. So you know how disturbed the parents were to find Junior in the feeder taking the easy road.

Two beautifully marked Pine Siskin visited the feeder and bird bath. They are one of my favorites reminding me of Idaho pine forests and visits with Mom and Dad who first pointed them out to me.

And last but not least the orphan. For the past two days we’ve had a strange disheveled looking bird in the feeder. Nondescript really except in what he wasn’t or didn’t have. He doesn’t have a tail. At first I thought Wren, but no, I mean he really doesn’t seem to have a tail. And then there is the lumpy mass at the nape of his neck; sort of a hunchback feature that grew too far up. He appears to have eyebrow feather/hairs that give him the disheveled look as if he just woke up from a nap. He doesn’t really appear to be injured and is becoming very territorial about the feeder.

So sad really not to be identifiable. Not to have a family. No really, I can’t determine the family. Is it Trogladytidae (Wrens) or Embrerizidae (Sparrows)? We’ll just keep the seeds coming and call him the orphan Wren-Sparrow.

Stay tuned for part two.