Tuesday, 2 October 2012

I'm ending up my trip in this amazingly well-preserved (and famous for it) medieval town. Even with a lot of tourists, fewer now than there would have been in summer, it's fun to visit. I'm spending a couple of days here before heading back to Frankfurt and home.

This has been such a great trip, with lots of diversity. I'm looking forward to sorting out photos and reflecting on my experiences when I get home.

Posted with Blogsy

Monday, 1 October 2012

Garden writing, Growing edibles

My book is available for preoder

17:15 Bigger No comments

Now available for preorder at amazon.com at a big discount!

Organic Methods Vegetable Gardening in Florida

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

solar in Germany, solar panels

A kitchen garden seen on the road

13:35 Bigger No comments

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 nice row of leeks

Posted with Blogsy

A Schwarzwald sunset

13:00 Bigger No comments

Here's a favorite experience today, seeing the sunset after a largely overcast day.

View toward Schoenwald

A full moon was already visible

Forest floor

Posted with Blogsy

Traveling into the Schwarzwald

13:41 Bigger No comments

Hard not to like!

Posted with Blogsy

Thursday, 27 September 2012

Florida

A glorious Florida afternoon!

11:33 Bigger No comments

This doesn't have anything to do with gardening, but the clouds in every direction around our house early this afternoon were amazing, so I thought I'd share them with you.

Isn't Florida wonderful???

Green Gardening Matters,

Ginny Stibolt

Freiburg market

Freiburg market at Munsterplatz

09:45 Bigger No comments

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!