Scared of winter coming?

As we head into December, below is a great link to follow through Organic Gardening magazine. Remember that gardening is not just a warm weather pursuit. We can glean much happiness from our winter gardens and yard and just the sheer excitement of the anticipation of the upcoming growing season can propel us through winter.

Seed catalogs, reviewing our journals, putting flower shows in our calendars, reading back issues of our favorite gardening mags, drooling over current issues and dreaming of what is possible in next year's garden are all fine ways to get through winter.

We will be starting seeds indoors and planting cool weather crops again before you can say snow, snow, go away...

http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/gardeners-do-list-december?cm_mmc=OGNews-_-738456-_-11302011-_-gardeners_to_do_list_for_december

Sugar-snap peas

So, I mentioned before our first fall attempt at sugar-snap peas. They are going crazy. Big, healthy plants and huge, crisp, sweet, sugar-snap peas. I mean pods, 3 and 4 inches in length that are so delicious.

I also noticed sugar-snap peas growing in Front Porch Farmers farms that are doing equally as well. Very exciting.

Horseradish

I thought by now we would have had a hard frost or two or three which would have killed off my greens on the horseradish and I could start to harvest it. Not only have we not had those hard frosts, but it was 71 degrees yesterday. Some of my pansies are getting leggy and trees are budding.

And I thought global warming was a myth!?

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving! It is a wonderful time of year to reflect upon life and all that makes this life a joy to live.

Also, here's to leftovers!

Gobble, Gobble, Gobble...

According to Congress pizza to remain a vegetable - Food Fight!!!

So next year we will plant pizza plants and look forward to harvesting such a yummy, easy to eat veggie. Seriously though, I love pizza and believe it has a place in one's diet, but classified as a serving of a vegetable... I think we can and should do better.

So, here is the link to Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution website as they watch nutritional standards and various lobbyists in Washington as they pertain to what is deliverable for U.S. school lunches. http://www.jamieoliver.com/us/foundation/jamies-food-revolution/news-content/playing-potato-pizza-politics.

I think it is important to know how food reaches your child in school and who you can talk to if you are concerned about the nutritional quality and healthfulness of that food.

In the mean time I'm going out for pizza! Bon Appetit!

Container Radishes

O.k., not so much. Maybe I took it a bit too extreme by dropping 3 or 4 seed into a 4" pot. I got greens and I got long, cylindrical, red taproot kind of things. They smell like radishes, they taste like radishes, but they don't look like the the bulbous kind of thing I am used to seeing.

But, then again, if I change my expectations this little experiment was a success!

Don't know until you try.

I'm a seed. I'm a seed too!

Kindergartners have been reading a book with the above title. One seed is a marigold seed, the other a pumpkin seed. As you can imagine the two seeds have quite the adventure - I won't spoil the story for you...

Anywho, this fall Kindergartners went to a farm to pick pumpkins, but they still had no idea what a marigold looked like (even though they are all around the school). So today we had them investigate the marigolds at school. They learned how seeds are formed within the flower, how to deadhead, how to harvest the seed, and how to plant the seed.

We planted two flats. One filled with seeds from the deadheads and one filled with seeds bought from Burpee. The students will watch and see which are the most prolific, and robust.

This should be a very fun experiment for these young scientists!

Sugar-snap peas

We have a great crop of sugar-snap peas going. This was our first attempt at a fall planting of sugar-snap peas at GSB and it is working out well. I am still disappointed at our low germination rates for sugar-snap peas - don't know what the problem could be. Both Burpee and Meyers' have performed equally poorly - so it must be something I am doing. The cool thing is that February is only 2 1/2 months away!!! Crazy, huh!?

A great raking link

Who knew there could be twelve rules for raking leaves? As the article says, start thinking about gathering for composting as those little nuggets fall!

http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/twelve-rules-raking?cm_mmc=OGNews-_-725596-_-11092011-_-the_twelve_rules_of_raking

Straw for the strawberries and FREE harlequin bugs...

We brought in six big bales of straw to use as a blanket for the strawberries and pollinator garden. The transplanted strawberry daughters have really taken off and have even created a lot of their own offspring. We should have quite a crop of berries come June if all goes as planned. I'm sure the pollinator perennials won't mind the extra warmth, carbon, and soil structure.

We will be planting more pansies, spring bulbs, and mustard greens this E3 Friday in addition to our straw job. We should have quite the showing of spring bulbs in 2012 with this year's additions!!

Free harlequin bugs to a good home. Must have plenty of brassica to eat and have a love for invasive, damaging insects. Plenty of older bugs as well as juveniles and babies to pick from. I am sure they will be going quickly with the holidays approaching. Inquire within.