JULY!

Where did May and June go?

We have peas, beets, lettuce, dill, kale and mache to eat already. Local corn has begun.

I have tomatoes on vines. Also a mysterious lack of pests.

This is a pea plant in May. We have eaten lots of peas (pods not actual peas) and the plants seem to have expired. I miss one day of picking and they stop producing. Next I'll rip them up and plant broccoli.

April has been warm and dry

The first week of April was not so warm, but the last 2 weeks have been warm and dry. So dry that we have a open fire ban.

Last weekend we moved the compost pile and filled up the garden beds. The week before, I had planted peas, beets, chard, spinach, lettuce, mesculen and mache.

Pictures to follow soon.

It's cold, even for March.

On Easter Sunday I started peppers, tomatoes and eggplant indoors. Also snapdragons, but they like it cool so they are in the basement.

As soon as the compost pile defrosts I have to start making more beds. I need space for my winter squash and pumpkins. I also have to work on my bean trellises.

It's nuttier than a fruitcake here

So, I work in downtown Albany. In case you've been living under a rock and don't catch any news, the governor of our great state is going to get hung out to dry because he was STOOPID. The tension up around the Capital is pretty thick. The weather is its usual crazy March self. We just started Daylight Savings Time and our internal clocks don't match the adjusted clocks.

I have many irons in the fire and we don't have our new chicks yet. We get them on Good Friday (I hope).

See Sharon's blog post on the stupidity(to the left is a link). It's hilarious.

A call for Victory Gardens

Remember those? During WWII everyone was encouraged to grow a victory garden to support the war effort. A little bit of self sufficiency went a long way. WWII was over more than 20 years before I was born, but I've seen pictures.

If we grow some of our own food, we won't be dependent on food trucked in from far away, we won't be as dependent on foreign oil and we will reduce greenhouse gases. Organic practices help the soil hold on to carbon. Vegetable plants use carbon.

Anyhow, I'm not really sure exactly how everything works (I'm no scientist) but I do know that I can produce really yummy food without too much work and even have enough to share.

So get on the bandwagon people. Start a victory garden.

Gardener's Porn

So I finally got my seed order together. I order from Fedco Seeds. It's a co-op in Maine. They have great prices, no GMO seeds and they do no business with Monsanto.

When my seeds arrived I had a refund for the eggplant I ordered. Since I never grew eggplant before, I had my heart set on this one particular variety "Rosa Bianca". Seeds Of Change didn't have it anymore. I finally found seeds at Baker Creek heirloom seeds. I spent $3 just for shipping. I got an extra packet of seed so I don't run out and I can share with my seed exchanging buddy Christy.

I took all my catalogs to the office I work in and explained how they are gardener's Porn. Seed catalogs sell a fantasy. In their pages there is the perfect amount of rain every season. There are no bugs, rabbit, voles or grubs. The vegetables are blemish free and never have blossom end rot.

In January the gardener is a motivated human with big dreams and HUGE ideas. By August a gardener is just a human with a lot of zuchinni.

Long time no post

The holidays are over. We have a little bit over a foot of snow. The boy has started skiing (strap on skis) and we are enjoying the snow.

I pruned the raspberries before the snow. Seed catalogs have arrived and I'm working up an order.