Looking forward to spring vegetables!

I'm doing a program this weekend about "creating an attractive and sustainable vegetable garden" and it has me thinking hopefully about spring vegetables.

I'm feeling behind on sowing seeds and getting started due to travel and a bad cold, so am ready for thinking positively about lettuce, spinach, beets, arugula, mustards, peas, etc. -- all the spring possibilities that can be totally successful (and delicious) depending on the vagaries of late winter/early spring weather.

I've STILL got offset baby leeks to transplant, but hopefully they'll catch up quickly when I have time and energy to do that.  I managed to get in onion seedlings and transplants this afternoon, but they suffered a bit from a delay in planting (due to my being under the weather), so it'll be interesting to see how they fare.

In the meantime, this view of June raised beds in the mountains last year cheered me up!

Raised beds in June

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February

The downie woodpeckers have been visiting the suet feeders (note to self, put suet cakes on the grocery list).

Yes, I could make homemade suet for them, but I'm already making (homemade) bread, granola, and yogurt for us --hmm, and keeping Woody from helping himself from cooling bread on the counter!

Hmmrph.  He managed half a loaf this afternoon.

It's been great fun to watch spring coming along (and winter blasting back, too).  I was going to put onion seedlings in the ground this afternoon, in spite of suffering with a bad cold, but quickly realized that the top inch or so was still frozen.  Hmm, I guess I'll wait for both onion seedlings and dormant onions!

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Signs of spring

The first Carolina Jessamine flowers have opened, both outside my study window and along the front step railing.  Well-expanded flower buds of a single bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) plant near the front path are just waiting for a bright sunny day to open, too.

I imagine that the small patch of Hepatica acutiloba at the Garden might be in flower, too.  What with the continuing rainy weather and more traveling, I haven't had time to check.

Daffodils, early cherries, and Chinese redbuds have all popped over the last few days -- noticeable after coming 'down the hill' from the mountains yesterday.

I've got onion plants (both dormant and ones growing actively) to get in the ground, along with leek offsets (from my perennial leeks) to transplant, too.  The prediction for the weekend is much colder weather, which although seasonal, might not be conducive to planting.  We'll see!

I haven't yet planted peas of any sort -- they're due, too, although they'll catch up quickly, whenever they're planted -- the key to their spring success is a long cool spring -- not a variable (or hot) one!

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Love Your Planet!

My table at the Love Your Planet Day at Flagler College
in St. Augustine on Feb. 11th.

While my book tour doesn't officially get underway until April, I took the opportunity to participate in the "Love Your Planet Day" at Flagler College in St. Augustine. I brought my books and a sample harvest from my garden. I talked to a lot of people and even sold a few books.

First Coast Slow Food table

There were 12 or 14 tables with various "green" displays and someone playing wooden flutes for atmosphere. First Coast* Slow Food had a table there. I found out that they are having a big event, which I will now be a participating vendor: First Coast Slow Down on May 3rd, which will take place at Intuition Ale 720 King Street Jacksonville, FL 32204.

"The Slow Down is a unique opportunity for local Snail of Approval recipients - chefs, farmers, producers and artisans - to come together in the spirit of collaboration and share their talents, products and expertise with those who are interested in a food system that is good, clean and fair. Each participating restaurant, farm, producer or artisan will have a table where they can display food, produce or food products."A limited number of tickets will be sold for this event.

See the events page on the "Organic Methods for Vegetable Gardening in Florida" website for my other events so far.

Flagler College has a beautiful campus.

It was a beautiful 80-degree day, if a little too breezy for good table management. Flagler is a small college with a lovely campus right in the center of St. Augustine.

*First Coast: Florida has divided itself into various coastal regions. The northeast region is call the First Coast because St. Augustine is the oldest city and Ponce deLeon landed here 500 years ago. Some of the other coasts are Space Coast, Treasure Coast, Palm Coast, Emerald Coast, and Nature Coast.

~ ~ ~

FNPS board members working through the exercise.

I went to the Florida Native Plant Society retreat in Haines City last weekend. We worked through some interesting exercises with the help of two facilitators to help the Society reorganize itself so that it (we) can grow.

Each of the five groups were drawing diagrams, thinking of contingencies, assumptions, and solutions for one topic. It was exhausting work because we were on our feet throughout most of the day. 

FNPS board members are always ready for a hike.  Even after a full day of work on Saturday from 8:30am to 4:30pm, a dozen members still had energy to spend the hour and a half before dinner out hiking in the scrub.

Even after all that work, I love that about half of the group (myself included, of course) went for a hike on a scrub habitat trail near the conference center for an hour and a half before dinner.  Most are quite knowledgeable about Florida's flora and habitats. Fun. We had a campfire that evening and then worked our butts off until almost 1pm on Sunday.

Now back to writing as much of my third book as possible before the book tour starts in April. Please come out to one of my events. I'd love to talk to you!

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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Embracing plants

I've loved learning about plants for decades -- native plants, vegetables, plant combinations, garden design, etc.  Visiting far-flung places as well as places closer to home has brought a wonderful sense of place to my view.

And it's all about the learning.

One of my favorite quotes is Thomas Jefferson's: "No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden...But though an old man, I am but a young gardener."

We're all young gardeners, whatever our age.  I love that. I just had the delightful experience of encouraging some younger gardeners/landscaper/plant people to grow more vegetables in the landscapes that they create and/or tend.

Piet Oudolf's garden, Sept. 2012

Let's do more to encourage young gardeners - whether it's growing vegetables or creating inspirational plantings.  It's a totally good thing.

P.S. This post is a milestone: number 1300.

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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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