Monday, 1 October 2012

My book is available for preoder

Now available for preorder at amazon.com at a big discount!
You can preorder Organic Methods for Vegetable Gardening in Florida from Amazon.com
I will be available for speaking to garden-oriented groups and gardenfests from April through June 2013 in north and north central Florida. My coauthor, Melissa Contreras, will be covering south and south central Florida. Send me an email if you're interested.  gstibolt@sky-bolt.com

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

Sunday, 30 September 2012

A kitchen garden seen on the road

I turned around and went back to take a picture of this vegetable and flower garden in the Neckar Valley ( traveling between the Schwarzwald and Rothenburg ob der Tauber (a wonderfully well-preserved and reconstructed medieval town.)

Check out the solar hot water panels sheltering the wood pile, with additional panels probably supplying energy for heat ! (This would also be via hot water, I think - there are modern hot water radiator units everywhere I've been during this trip.

With extensive solar panels everywhere, I've been wondering about what exactly they're powering. I passed an Aldi grocery today which had an entire roof of solar panels - presumably that's electricity for the whole store, but I'll need to do some research about this when I get home. Solar is so much more prevalent here - on farm buildings, residences, commercial buildings, etc. along with centralized stations with multiple panels.

And it's interesting, too, to see wind turbines in all sorts of places, some of them quite unlikely.

On another topic, I've been seeing lovely fields of leeks, so I was glad to see these in this garden, too.

A kitchen garden near Horb am Neckar
A kitchen garden near Horb am Neckar
A nice row of leeks



Saturday, 29 September 2012

Friday, 28 September 2012

Thursday, 27 September 2012

Freiburg market at Munsterplatz

One of my favorite places in Freiburg was the almost daily market in the Munsterplatz (during the 2 months I was there - language school for all of us DAAD fellowship folks - we were from all over the world, another great experience from long ago.)

I was so glad both to still find the market in full swing, but also all the wonderful vegetables, plants, etc. looking great. A few were unfamiliar ( a tomatillo relative, another Physalis) had me stumped. Was it sweet? Did you cook it? I wished I'd asked, but the vendor looked a bit stern!

A variety of herbs
Fresh raspberries and strawberries
 

 

Great-looking radishes and beets
Organic apples
 

Wild mushrooms for sale
An attractive flower stand
 

Lots of plants for sale, too.
 

Wednesday, 26 September 2012

Traveling from Heidelberg to Munstertal

Somehow I've bumbled into a fabulous Schwarzwald destination outside of Freiburg for a couple of days. Hotels & vacation apartments in Freiburg are hard to book at the last minute on weekends, so I'd had to look outside the city.

Munstertal view
Down Munstertal
But I managed to find a wonderful small hotel next to a centuries-old cloister (still active) in a incredibly beautiful valley. I had no idea when I booked yesterday. It's totally lovely.

Cloister in Munstertal
I've been admiring all sorts of public plantings in round-abouts and in commercial spaces, too, along the way. Here are a few of them.

Roundabout planting in Germany
Entrance to a commerical area
Metal planters at entrance to a business