The holidays in Florida

Sugar snap peas are delish right from the vine.Starting from the point of the knife: oregano, curly parsley, garlic chives, purple & orange carrots, sugar snap peas.It's two days before Christmas and the rains are headed our way, so it was time to harvest some of the Christmas dinner.  The...

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Greens and clear mountains

A quick trip "up the hill" for a meeting found me admiring the clear view of the mountains and a lovely sunset.late winter greens from a previous yearA bonus from this trip was collecting greens (arugula, mustards, kale and turnip greens) from my unprotected raised beds. It's rather remarkable how they've...

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Back to normal?

Finally, our curiously warm and wet days for early December are trending back to normal, after being punctuated (on both ends) by severe freezes.It was 71° yesterday.  Very odd. It's triggering some early flowering, but not like last year oddities, that's for sure.  But I remember a Christmas...

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A lovely hike

A gift of an unexpected Sunday afternoon in the mountains (thanks to a plumbing issue requiring Monday attention) was a lovely hike along a short segment of the Mountains-to-Sea trail, along the Blue Ridge Parkway.Remnant snow made the trail slippery in spots, but the views were lovely.Galax and mosses...

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Another pileated woodpecker

The red oak tree directly seen from our deck has (a relatively recent) old dead branch poking out to the right of the main trunk. It's a magnet for woodpeckers, not surprisingly,-- we've seen downies and red-bellied woodpeckers visiting our feeder frequently,Since the dead branch has occurred, we've...

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Clay County Delegation Hearing and Plan Ahead!

Speaking at the Clay County Delegation Hearing.I spoke before the Clay County Delegation hearing on Nov. 18th. The delegation includes our state senator, Rob Bradley and 2 representatives that claim part of Clay County in their districts: Charlie Van Zant and Travis Cummings. I spoke to this same group...

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Short-day onions & more...

Garlic chives!The winter edible season has started, but not before a couple of last gasps of the fall crops.In doing the research for "Organic Methods for Vegetable Gardening in Florida," I planted some garlic chives.  I'd never planted them before and was prepared to be underwhelmed, but not so. ...

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