January 26, 2009

Happy Chinese New Year – the year of the Ox

The Chinese New Year’s Celebration is called the “Spring Festival.” A Chinese proverb states that all creations are reborn on New Year’s day. The Chinese New Year is a celebration of change … out with the old and in with the new! The Ox is a Keeper of tradition, who maintains a classic and sophisticated style. Iron-willed, they remain true to their beliefs. A strong leader, their hard work and dedication are an inspiration to all. Ox people never stray from their chosen path. (By the way, I was born…

January 26, 2009

planning for a seedling shelf system

I meant to look into a shelf system for seedlings this weekend. Best of intentions … But my cold is still getting the better of me. I was feeling good on Saturday and maybe over did it with a nice hike. After doing the school-sport-cheering-Mom thing, I took some kids and some dogs hiking. The local Boston trails are covered with a foot of packed powder. Fantastic for hiking. Unusual here. Usually we get melting and end up with icy slick paths, terrible to walk on. Packed powder is beautiful,…

January 23, 2009

it can only get better from here on in….

I have to complain today that I have a terrible cold and I don’t feel good at all. I’m tired of the cold and the snow. I miss everything green. I’m tired of having to put on gloves and boots and coat and sweater and etc every time I want to go out…. Maybe I could get a winter home in Australia or Chile. We have 15 inches of snow piled up so high its hard to see around corners when driving. I don’t know how many times I’ve slipped…

January 23, 2009

vegetable gardens doubling this year !

Well, my very unofficial poll in the post below seems to say that there will be twice as many vegetable gardens this year! Wow. It also says that EVERYONE will have a vegetable garden (i.e. nobody doesn’t have a garden). Great. Right now, with a grand total of 71 votes (that must be a significant number…), 48% are starting a new garden and 52% already have a garden. Maybe I don’t have the complete picture here 😉 but still it makes me happy to think about new gardens. I wonder…

January 20, 2009

new gardens – new beginnings

I always love to hear from people starting a new vegetable garden. What a wonderful thing. And on this Inauguration Day, a day of such hopeful new beginnings, it seems a particularly appropriate topic. I was asked to post information on starting a garden. How-to information. But it also gives me a chance to reminisce. And to follow my newly expanded community garden space this season. I’ll put a new link on my sidebar “For New Vegetable Gardeners”. To reminisce a bit, I started helping my Dad in his gardens…

January 18, 2009

checking on the mid winter kale

I went out to the garden this morning to check on the kale. I haven’t been out there in a few days. I didn’t realize we had more snow coming in, but there is another fresh layer coming down. I had to dig down to find the kale. The more tender Red Russian kale has frost damage. Little round spots on the leaves. Last year, once it got these it looked terrible after bringing it inside and thawing. This happened at 10*F last year. Our temps got down to about…

January 18, 2009

fresh snow flakes on kale

I got out my macro lens to see if I could photograph the snow flakes. They seem to be giant flakes and many have broken their rays.

January 16, 2009

brrrr…..

Bitter cold and snow covered, but the kale is very good. Those are my footprints from picking kale. And the paw prints of my buddy.aerial views of my home vegetable garden

January 16, 2009

seeds

I got out all my left over seeds tonight and checked through them. I threw out the umbellifers (carrots, parsnips, dill, parsley etc) as these seeds don’t store well. I threw out the empty packages. And I threw some packages that didn’t sprout for me for the past 2 years (a zucchini and some parsnips). Still close to 50 packs left! It would be a nice garden even if I didn’t buy any more this year. Nevertheless, I placed orders for some new varieties. I ordered from Burpee, Johnny’s and…

January 15, 2009

garden blogger’s bloom day

On the 15th of each month (GBBD) many gardeners post photos of what’s blooming in their garden. I usually forget but remembered this month. – of all times(!) Temps are single digits, newscasters are warning not to go out. And nothing’s blooming out there anyway. The only thing left in my vegetable garden is a patch of kale. Everything’s under a foot of snow. So I’m posting flowers I photographed from last year’s garden. This, as I stay warm and order next year’s flower seeds. These are vegetable flowers, companions,…

weeks and counting until my last spring frost

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