Showing posts with label "winter garden". Show all posts
Showing posts with label "winter garden". Show all posts

Saturday, February 16, 2008

On a Clementine box


It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood! Blue sky has been a rare sight here of late. Finally I got a chance to take a picture with some color and light.

Not too long ago, a friend from California told me of a book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I’m always ready to read a book about gardening, but this was not the book I was expecting. It’s about raising most of your own food, but it’s also about saving oil.

Here’s where I get up on my Clementine box. (I don’t have a soap box.) Eating as much locally produced food as possible is a really good thing! Right from the outset, since I’m wobbling on a little Clementine box, you know I buy some well- traveled produce. In a way I’ve always resented that those cute little orange things have been in Spain and I haven’t, but I never really considered that it takes oil to get them here. This book has given me something to think about. Barbara’s website has great pictures, (Love those Bourbon Red turkeys), recipes and links to information about C.S.A.s and farmer’s markets. Click on the book title to go there. This next growing season, you could make a difference.

Now I can look at my garden with the same satisfied feeling as a person who drives a hybrid looks at their car. We’re both doing a good thing.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Winter Garden Beds


It’s a lovely snowy day since I don’t have to go anywhere. The garden is back to a more wintry normal. The plants are safe under their blanket of snow. I bet the skunks have gone back to sleep too. There’s not much to do outside, so I took some time to sort out this year's seeds. I always start out the year with the new seeds marked for 2008 and arranged in alphabetical order in their own box. For awhile it makes it easier to find them, although I confess the system loses out as the summer wears on. That done, it’s time to go back through the leftover seed from previous years and check to make sure I have my necessary seeds. Sometimes I save seed. Sometimes extra seeds from last year are still good, and sometimes, all good intentions aside, there are some seed packets that never got opened. There’s always hope for them this year.

Some of my favorite vegetable varieties:
Basil: Genovese, Red Rubin, Aroma 2
Beans: Asparagus yard long beans
Beets: Rodina, Forono
Carrots: Sugar Snack
Kale: Winterbor, Red Russian
Onions: Copra
Peas: Oregon Giant snow peas, Lincoln shell peas
Pepper: Ace
Pumpkin: Small Sugar
Spinach : Bloomsdale, Melody
Squash: Butternut, Table Ace acorn, Golden Hubbard
Tomatoes: Red Sun

It’s not the whole list but it’s a start. I did not list a favorite lettuce because that is one place where I’ll buy almost anything. I think Flashy Trout Back was my favorite last year. Maybe I missed something. I’ll just give those catalogs one more look. It's still early!