Ready for a new gardener

I cleaned up the main vegetable garden in the Piedmont today.  I meant to get a photo this afternoon, but time got away, with pulls of other things.

This is what it looked like getting ready a year or so ago.

prepped for planting (main vegetable garden)

It didn't need much prep, as I'd prepared and planted last fall, just to have early frost, deer, squirrels, and woodchucks pretty much clear what had been planted -  out.

I planted some kale, weeded around the perennial leeks, cleaned up around a flourishing patch of creasy greens, and "fluffed up" the soil around emerging sorrel and chives, and all of the bare areas.

It's ready for a new gardener.  The satellite garden has gone back to mulch, but it's ready, too, as is the sunny patch of lawn below the house (perfect for converting to a number of large raised beds for vegetables and herbs!)

My containers near the potting bench have parsley and spinach in them; the porch plantings have been equally spiffed up.

I'm about to prepare some sugar water for the hummingbird feeder. The males are heading north, now.  The feeder will be waiting to provide sustenance along the way to farther north.

I was wistful as I prepared the beds this afternoon, but I have lovely raised beds in full sun to look forward to.  I'm grateful for that.

full of greens and kale

Read More

A warmer day (and vegetable musings)

Finally, the last bit of accumulated ice has melted and it was a "normal" temperature day, with highs ~ 58°F.

I'm itching to plant cool-season greens - I've missed having homegrown greens (kale, collards, mustard, etc.) over the last two winters, even though I've felt we've eaten nothing but homegrown greens in years past.

So, we're enjoying broccoli, collards, red cabbage, and kale from the grocery store -- cooked with garlic, red onions, and a bit of balsamic vinegar -- they're quite nice.

But a restaurant meal out at a local Mexican place yesterday evening was telling -- the "vegetables" were shredded carrots, broccoli bits, and some onions, clearly from a regional veggie warehouse somewhere, and delivered through the commercial food system.  They all tasted the same.

Geez, I sound like a total food snob, but homegrown veggies are really good. Vegetables from local markets, ditto.

Freshly-harvested vegetables, even if industrial, quickly frozen, are good, too, as are their organic equivalents.

I don't like to buy fruits and vegetables with a super long distance pedigree, so certainly "fresh" fruits and vegetables from the Southern Hemisphere this time of year are not normally in my cart  (berries, peaches and nectarines, grapes, asparagus, and the like).

The exception --bananas -- my hubbie's breakfast staple fruit. And coffee. And broccoli and lettuce from California, well, I suppose so, too...So I'm hardly a purist.

Hmm, soon it will be warm enough to sow at least a quick crop of cool-season greens, I hope.

Read More

Hmm, more snow and (potential) ice coming?

Yikes, this winter has been really strange. 

The Prunus mume (that I saw starting to flower again last weekend) may be totally blasted. 

At least the predicted temperatures are quite moderate. 

The forecast is all about snow (and potential ice) and full of hyperbole about snowfall (I think because of all of the previous storms and severe temperatures this winter).

We could be inundated with snow and ice in the upstate of South Carolina over the next few days, or maybe not.  We'll see.

It all depends on where the fronts collide, it seems.

At least I haven't planted any peas yet!  I haven't even managed to get out and take soil temperatures or turn the beds.  And my raised beds in the mountains -- hmm -- they'll be replanted totally from scratch -- I don't think any of the perennial herbs made it through the severe cold of January.

Hmm, seeing previous incarnations of spring planting is always encouraging.  Here's an link to searches about previous blog posts about "spring vegetable beds."

My raised beds in the mountains and the piedmont at the moment look really sad.  They're ready for change-outs.  They're waiting for spring.

Read More