Colorful winter vegetables

I'm adapting a program about creative and attractive vegetable gardening to focus on urban vegetable gardening (for a talk next week) and came across a photo I took of a mid-winter vegetable planting last December.  Impressive, partially because there hadn't a long hard period of freezing temperatures.

Winter vegetables

I love the textures and color combinations and everything I've harvested so far (from the kale to the leeks) has been tasty!

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And back to cold weather...

Winter harvest.

It's been warm recently and yesterday, it was in the mid 80s! My Lollo Rosso lettuce has bolted (flowered) and has become bitter--not so bitter that we don't still eat it, but it's certainly past its prime. On the other hand my sugar snap peas started blooming again and have produced a bunch of new pods.

My husband and I enjoyed a main course pear salad using all this lettuce and some of the come-again broccoli and peas. The next night we enjoyed a stir fry using the rest of the broccoli, peas and some wild garlic from the garden.  We love eating out of the garden.

This is the 5th or 6th round of small curds from the broccoli plants after the initial big florets. We like these better because they grow so quickly that they are sweeter. The plants are working so hard to produce seed and I keep interrupting them. Eventually, I'll allow them to flower when the next crop of broccoli starts to produce.

My new book is here!!

There are freeze warnings for tonight and the next few nights so my more recently planted cool-weather crops might have a chance to mature before the real heat hits later in the spring.  For now, the tomato and pepper seedlings are spending their nights in the garage.

The books are here!

My new book has arrived. Now I have to get busy and send copies to all the people who helped along the way. It's a long list! Thanks everyone; the book is beautiful.

Senator Rob Bradley and me.

Senator Rob Bradley

This evening I went to a reception for Rob Bradley at his new Clay County office. He's our senator for the Florida legislature.

I called him after the election to congratulate him on his victory and to convince him that environmental issues are important for the state of the state. By protecting Florida's ecosystems, we are helping businesses in many ways. Later he invited me to speak before the Clay County Delegation.

I wrote about my preparations for that encounter in my post over on the Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens blog: Supporting wildlife beyond your garden gate.

This evening I talked to his policy person, other members of his staff, and a bunch of other folks who attended the reception. Always good to work a room.

A Muscovy duck came a-calling

 A beggar...

 A Muscovy duck came to our front door the other day.  There is a small group of these Mexican natives that lives on our lake, but our house is not that close to the water and we'd never seen them in our pond out front. But this drake decided to say hello.

Maybe he was looking for a handout. When we told him that in our sustainable yard the birds have to find their own food, he turned tail and left.




I'm hoping the cool weather stays for a while. It is mid-winter after all.

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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Signs of spring

I've been so distracted by other concerns that I've neglected my garden lately. 

We've enjoyed summer green beans (from the chest freezer), roasted tomatoes, too, and even roasted peaches (turned into freezer jam).

A lovely excursion with middle-school students into the Garden (where I work) found us listening to early bird calls and noticing all the early-flowering Asian plants.

Hmm, it looks like another warm winter/early spring -- but, predictions are for much lower temperatures over the weekend. 

So we'll see.

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Organic Methods for Vegetable Gardening in Florida is in the warehouse!

Melissa and I received the email from University Press of Florida today telling us that our book is in the warehouse and is ready to ship. Yay!

Melissa and I received our covers last week, but I didn't expect the book quite this early. If you've preordered your copy, you should have it soon.

We have created a book website with events open to the public where one of us will be a vendor or will be speaking. There is also order information and a blog.  Once we have reviews, we'll post those as well.
You can find it at www.floridavegetablegardening.com

I have many more events to enter on that page. I'll be on a three-month book tour from April through June. April is pretty well filled. What doesn't show on this page is all the Master Gardener groups I'll be speaking to because those meetings are not open to the public. If you have an event or group meeting in central or north Florida, that will be happening in May or June, let me know!  gstibolt@sky-bolt.com  Thanks.

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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Leeks fresh from the garden

freshly harvested leeks

I've left an assortment of leeks tucked in raised beds in the mountains through winter. They're so attractive, with their gray-green tops, and hardy, too. But I was noticing that a couple were getting REALLY big (hmm, about grocery store size, actually), and I was thinking that maybe they'd start forming flower buds sometime soon, if I didn't harvest them.

So I was delighted to see that they're in perfect shape (apparently) for eating.

Leeks are a relatively new vegetable for me to both grow and eat - I've just been growing them for the last 3 or four years. French leeks 'Primor' from Renee's Seeds (perfect as small, succulent "baby" leeks) have been amazing, roasted in a bit of olive oil. Yum.

I'm not sure what variety these leeks were -- I'll have to poke through some old posts, perhaps, to see if I can figure that out -- probably King Richard or one of the other standard varieties. I'm remembering that I have grew them from seed in flats started in cold frames early last spring, then transplanting them. Maybe they were 'Primor' actually -- I had harvested most of the leeks by late fall, to enjoy while still smaller.

These are certainly impressive to me as first "big" leeks!

 

Posted with Blogsy

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Cilantro & Carolina jessamine

Amazing to harvest fresh cilantro in mid-January for our black bean chili - tonight's dinner.  Normally it would have long have been frozen out by now.

And, I noticed the first Carolina jessamine flowers outside my study window, too.  Not to mention the crocuses that have popped up over the last few days, too.

Hmm, can spring really be on the way?  It's sort of feeling like that, as I'm weeding out the chickweed and henbit from my containers, and am faced with an explosion of winter annuals out in the garden!

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Arugula

My arugula patches have sailed through the winter, so far, both here in the Piedmont and in the mountains. Of course, the winter has been mild! (It was 70° F this afternoon - peculiar).

I had the idea that arugula's frost tolerance was more like "normal" lettuce (not Winter Density or North Pole or Arctic King), and so it's been a revelation to have these flourishing patches -- happily, it's the one "green" (along with cilantro) that deer haven't eaten in the satellite garden (in the Piedmont). 

It's a bit discouraging to think I'll need to fence/protect/defend my less 'spicy' greens from deer, if I want to grow them. Kale, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, collards, etc. have all disappeared as deer forage over the last few cool-weather seasons.  Even French sorrel -- yikes.

Happily, in the mountains, my raised beds are in front of the house, and I don't think we have deer (yet), and only very brave woodchucks venture that far out of the woodland ravine behind the house (in dry summers, primarily).

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