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Snapshots of the fall/winter garden
Looking outside the window, the world is currently frosted. I haven’t tended much to the fall and winter garden. Onions continue to send up green shoots, the garlic is sprouting, and baby kale plants promise to soon take over their own corner of the garden. I’m a lover of fall color, but I really miss the warm summer, being able to walk barefoot on the mulch paths and feeling the hot sun heat up my back as I bend over…
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Herb Garden Inspiration
Albeit I haven’t seen many herb gardens, one of my favorite places to visit is the herb garden at the Historic Oak View County Park. Dedicating a space solely for the growing of culinary herbs is quite divine. I have an herb garden that wraps halfway around my back deck, and slowly this space is expanding to other parts of the garden as I find new cultivars that I *must* grow. Yesterday, the Oak View garden was past its peak…
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Rainwater Harvesting Cistern
Last week I got an email asking if we were interested in hosting a teaching and demonstration project for a class of NCSU students, which would involve the installation of a free rainwater harvesting cistern at our house. Of course I jumped on that opportunity as Joe and I have been attempting for awhile to get a system going for the garden. Two of our downspouts feed into this 550 gallon cistern, which has a submersible pump smart enough to…
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Uprooted
It took me three years to start an asparagus bed, one year of putting up with the Man grumbling about the location of the asparagus bed, and two hours to dig it all up and move it to a new location. Oh my, my arms hurt today! Instead of having a single row of asparagus up the property line, I now have a rectangular bed just outside the fenced vegetable garden when my two raspberry bare root plants gave up…
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Open letters to plants
Dear extremely lazy tomato plant, I hope you realize that you had all summer to produce offspring, and why you decided to wait until the end of September to make a tomato is beyond my understanding. Was it that the climbing squash vine was cramping your style? As you can see, waiting until the cool weather was a very poor decision. No, I will not be eating your nasty rotten fruit, nor will I be saving your seeds. Dear bi-color…
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Weekend Garden & Pottery Recap
Spurred on by the change in temperature, Joe and I spent a good two hours ripping out tired squash and bean vines and all the wire remesh used for the tunnel and dome. Although the okra was still happily producing, I pulled it out too so that I could begin tilling up the plots to let them rest for the fall. The lettuces that were scattered in various beds have been consolidated to a couple central locations, although I doubt…
