We have a chilly week ahead in the Piedmont (of South Carolina). On Tuesday, the low is predicted to be 28°F --variable depending on the weather site consulted.Traditionally, our last frost date here is April 15th, so we shouldn't be surprised.But, it's been so darn wintry this year, I've been celebrating signs of spring big-time, from the daffodils, snowdrops, leucojum, forsythia, flowering...
Sunday, 23 March 2014
Harvest-directed cooking
I love this time of year because so much of what we eat comes from the garden. It's harvest-directed cooking.A dinner salad from the garden includes a rogue blooming onion*, Swiss chard, 3 types of lettuce from the chef's mix blend, romaine, curly parsley, carrots, sugar-snap peas, come-again broccoli,...
Saturday, 22 March 2014
Bloodroot is in flower!
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It's such a joy to see the bright white flowers of bloodroot after a long winter. It's one of our early spring flowering natives, along with hepatica and trout lily.It's done well in our emerging woodland garden, too.clumps of bloodroot along the front pathAfter slowly amending the soil with mulch...
Saturday, 15 March 2014
U.S. Virgin Islands and local food production
view towards St. Thomas from St. JohnA second trip to the Caribbean has me pondering (again) about local food, food self-sufficiency, and vegetable-growing (hmm, where are they). Not to mention supplies of anything else.Apparently, between 95-99% of food is imported in the U.S. Virgin Islands...
Thursday, 13 March 2014
Supporting pollinators
With the increase in use of neonicotinoid pesticides in "routine" propagation of garden perennials, there's definitely been a recognition that it CAN be an issue in some plants producing nectar, pollen, and/or leaf tissue harmful to pollinators. The Xerces Society has brought this forward -- how comprehensive a problem it might be remains to be seen.The bottom line is that neonicotinoids have...
Sunday, 9 March 2014
Finally, time to sow!
It's taken forever this winter to finally be time to sow. It could have been last weekend, but I was busy doing other things, and I knew soil temperatures were still low."blank" raised beds --now sown with peas, beets, lettuce, and greensBut a beautiful weekend and signs of spring popping out...
Friday, 7 March 2014
A trout lily adventure
The beautiful trout lilies put on quite a show,but only for a few weeks in the spring.I first heard about Wolf Creek Trout Lily Preserve at the 2010 Florida Native Plant Society Conference in Tallahassee when Dan Miller made a lunchtime presentation. He told about how he a few others had saved a unique,...