Archive for Garden

30 Oct 2011
Cookery • Garden • locavore log

October 29 And It’s Snowing

October 29 and it is snowing – wet heavy snow. Plenty of leaves yet on many trees — although the birches are denuded by now. Still, some under story trees or ornamental ones like crape myrtle sport lots of green. It’s an unusual sight, snow on leafy trees. Will winter be short? Or will it be a long one?

The next few days promise to be mild, and with ground still warm from summer, there will be no lasting accumulation; yet, the falling snow and the frost predicted for tomorrow morning are firmly ending the summer garden. I hurried on Thursday and Friday to pick up all of the remaining peppers and green beans, cut up big bunches of basil and chayote squash vine, and dug up the last few sweet potatoes that I had planted in my tropical bed. Also dug up, potted and dragged those same perennial tropicals or Mediterranean plants to the greenhouse. Barely in time. But in time. They will survive winter – just, sometimes – in the minimally heated greenhouse to be planted out again next spring. What can I say? I love ferns, lantanas, daturas, citruses, jasmines, geraniums, agapanthus, gingers and bananas. I do! Read more

sylvie | 8 comments | Tags: , , , ,
20 Jun 2010
Garden • Harvest • Kitchen Garden • locavore log

The June Garden

The June garden can be quite overwhelming. There is a lot to seed still, a lot to rip out, a lot to build, a lot to maintain,  a lot to harvest, and a lot to clear and get ready for the next crop. We plant continuously here at Laughing Duck gardens, and try to put something in as soon as we rip something out.

csa-2010-spring-week-7

Lets see… We have harvesting mustard greens (still. again!), strawberries, Swiss chard, beets, zucchini & summer squash, all kinds of herbs, and green beans. We are seeing the last of the kale (there was not much to start with anyway). We just finished harvesting  the last of the shelling peas and, all the currants. And I have picked the last of the asparagus for this year ( I am now letting the fern grow). Read more

sylvie | 4 comments | Tags:
11 May 2009
Garden • Kitchen Garden • Nature

Firsts and Lasts

First Shirley poppy (Papaver rhoeas), one of my favorite flowers that I let seed all over the garden.

shirley-poppies-2008-06-012

They come on the heel of the orange-y wispy field poppies, and they come in shade of pinks and reds, from the clearest vermilion to dark wine; some have black crosses as their center, other white blotches. They are so graceful and so luminous in the morning light. Last year they were beautiful with the asparagus ferns, peaking in June.

Now is also the last of the dogwood blossoms, the petals falling off with the rain. It’s been a good year for dogwoods.

First Swiss chard of the season, chopped and sautéed with garlic and some of the last freezer cherry tomatoes.

Last of the spinach: it was a mistake not to plant spinach last fall; the seeds planted in late winter never made plants big enough before bolting. We had a few nice salads, but that’s it. This fall: no excuse, spinach must be sown in September!

First peas… soon. The peas are blooming now, pods won’t be long. Meanwhile, I pinch the shoots off to force the plant to branch, and they go into salad (pea shoots are edible, you know).

And finally: first black bear sighting of the season. This morning around 6:30 as I was on my way to let the chickens out of their coop. I first was not sure what that big black mass was – I did not have my glasses on, but it moved, slowly, so I knew it was not a pool of shadows. He (she?) was where I was expecting him (her?) to show up anytime now: in the skunk cabbage patch. I was expecting him. It does not mean I am happy to see him. I yelled, he raised his big head, look and me, and slowly, slowly, very slowly, turned his back, and walked up the hill.

He is not always that accommodating.

sylvie | 4 comments | Tags:
28 Apr 2009
Garden • Nature

Postcard From The Woods

Actually not from the woods but from a very nice garden that was open during Virginia Historic Garden Week. But the dogwoods are blooming in the woods too – although the last couple of very hot days is shortening the bloom time. Other than that, it’s been a fabulous spring for dogwoods, rebuds, sassafras and other native blooming trees..

dogwood

sylvie | 2 comments | Tags:
26 Mar 2009
Fruit recipe • Garden • Garden Technique • Kitchen Garden • locavore log • Recipes • Seed Starting • vegetable

Hardening Off

It’s time to start hardening off the babies. At least, for those of us in the Northern Piedmont (and in the mid-Atlantic area). Yep, time to start hardening off the hardy annual vegetables that were lovingly started indoors. That include you people who took one of my “Starting The Veggy Garden from Seeds” workshops a few weeks ago.

Everything but parsley – maybe lavender and pepper (they all can take several looong weeks to germinate) – should be up now.

lettuce-flat-to-be-transplanted

Continue to give basil, tomatoes, pepper, marigolds and any other warm lovers like eggplants plenty of light and warmth. Take them outside on sunny days only when the temperature is above 50F/10C (mmm… maybe even 60F/16C for eggplants). Place them in a sheltered spot, just an hour or two the first time, then more and more progressively over the course of a few days until they can be left out the entire day when it’s mild. It’s not time to plant them out yet – by a long shot – but fresh air and sunshine will do them good. Read more

sylvie | 2 comments | Tags: , , , , , ,
22 Mar 2009
Bees • Garden • Nature

Blue And Red

Spring is blue and red: blue clear sky and red maple flowers.

maple-flowers-2009-03-136

Indeed the maples are blooming now, the earliest single species source of nectar and pollen for our bees. Read more

sylvie | One comment | Tags: , , ,
19 Mar 2009
Garden • Garden Technique • Kitchen Garden

Green

Finally – rain. Gentle, slow, soft, over the course of a few days.

A the end, it did not add to that much altogether – maybe 1/2 inch (as measured by my hand thrust in a bucket that was left out). Nonetheless, it was rain in what has been a cold and dry winter with hardly any snow, hardly any rain, lots of drying wind and temperatures dipping below 0F ( -18C) at time. So, a few days of mild temperature and a gentle rain are making everything sprouts, buds, shoots, germinates, swells… springs!!! It makes one hunger for fresh vegetable.

kale-bed-mid-march1

Among the vegetable that we can harvest now are the kales. Read more

sylvie | 3 comments | Tags: , , , ,
13 Mar 2009
chicken • Garden • Garden Technique • Nature • Seed Starting

The Ides Of March

Something softly went through the hollow last night, dropping huge handfuls of wet snow all over. The snow on the ground was gone by mid-morning, but wads of sticky whiteness remained in shrubs and dry grasses – looking like cotton candy.

march-cotton-candy-2009-03-071

Meanwhile, inside under the shop lights, seeds planted earlier this month have germinated, true leaves starting to show.Soon to be moved to the greenhouse, thinned and even up-potted.seedling-2009-03-065

and then… peep peep… arrived today, brought by a big stork…peep peep

chicken-2009-03-13-021

sylvie | 5 comments | Tags: , , ,
03 Mar 2009
Garden • herb • Kitchen Garden • locavore log • Recipes • vegetable

A Potted Kitchen Garden

Do you do pot?

Not that kind of pot, silly! But “pot” as in food grown in a container…

Virginia Rockwell asked me in a comment on the post labeled “Eating Local in the Northern Piedmont in Winter” if I have “any tips for newbies [about] growing your own in central VA? […] focusing on growing edibles in containers, close by the kitchen door, and the easy, rewarding stuff – using local, sustainable sources for seeds, plants when possible.”

Virginia is a landscape designer in Gordonsville, VA and offers container gardening to her clients, of ornamental plants – as much as I can tell. So, going edible is just one step away from what she is already doing. I started to write her a private e-mail, but realized this would make a good post, so here is my letter to Virginia.

Dear Virginia:

Thanks for contacting me! I am always truly happy when one more person wants to grow some of her own food, so I hope you have a great attendance for your workshop.

My first edible garden was eked – almost 20 years ago – out of the bareness of a 6th floor balcony of an apartment building in Fairfax County. No elevator. Everything was man- or woman-carried up 6 flights of stairs: the pots, the soil, the planters, the plants, the tools. I mostly remember the tomatoes, started from seeds, and the numerous mile-long walks to Merrifield garden center, and back with plants: fern, rosemary, little annual packs… and I remember all the plants I wanted to grow then but could not. Then I got married, and we moved to a townhouse. Twice. Each time we left a small garden behind us.

Read more

sylvie | 9 comments | Tags: , , , ,
02 Mar 2009
Garden • Kitchen Garden

Sigh

Today, we are not planting potatoes in the cold frame.

View toward the upper garden

garden-upper-2009-03-021

and view toward the lower garden (from the safety of the porch)

garden-lower-2009-03-021

and the seed starting area in the house…

garden-inside-2009-03-021

On the other hand, it would be a good day to go scatter seeds of Shirley poppy, nigella, chamomile, and all those hardy annuals that bloom in early summer, really prefer some cold while they are seeds, and want surface sowing. Just a thought… in case you did not scatter them last fall.

I am actually glad of the snow covering since the forecasts are calling for single digit temperature tonite (in F! in C, that’s -13° to – 15°). At least the snow blanket will provide some insulation from the biting cold. And we surely need the water (although 4 inches of snow is not a lot of precipitation).

But we take what we get, and we say thank you.

sylvie | One comment | Tags: , ,
« Older Entries