Short Story Long

 Last year, I made some effort (not thoroughly successful) to capture state-of-the-garden pictures every month, including panoramas stitched together on Photoshop, in order to get the whole view of what's happening.  So here's a little recap of the garden in 2023! early March April May June August It appears that I missed July, and either didn't take or didn't save this project in September, although we didn't have a killing frost very late into the season - we were still harvesting a few things in October.  As much as I loved the lettuce that was growing in the tunnel, and getting an early start on a few things, I'm not a fan of plastic anywhere, especially in my garden, so I am looking at options - cold boxes with old windows, etc.  I'm planning to start my 2024 garden this month - pea planting, planning, and seed starting in March!  What are you planting?  

  As I was pulling dill from between my radishes and lettuce, I remembered that I wanted to dry more of my own herbs this year.  A little bit of my garden in my pantry all year; looking forward to harvesting a bunch of lemon thyme! 

There went March, April, and most of May!   I'm already pulling arugula from the garden that's about to bolt, and eating through some lovely lettuce while it's in its prime.  Pictured above, arugula, lettuce Landis Winter, lettuce Rouge d'Hiver.  The string is for the square-foot flower garden this will eventually be; I planted these cold weather crops while I was waiting patiently for flower planting!   I love having my own lettuce for this Asian chicken lettuce wrap, below, ( original recipe here ).  We use chicken instead of veal and I definitely skip the cilantro, but it's a great recipe to use some garden goodies - green onions, lettuce, carrots, etc.  We used two fresh heads of green lettuce but I couldn't tell them apart once we were making food, and I definitely had a favorite!  So I will have to pull another two apart and figure it out.  I am thinking of starting more lettuce under a grow light and put them out in a shadier spot...

As classes of all sorts get scheduled, rescheduled and postponed due to weather, and with the short days with less light, I often find January and February to be a forced pause.  Years like this convince me that I should get good at reading rain gauges and keeping track of the temperature.  It seems like we've had an usual amount of snow.  That should be good for our snow pack and seasonal runoff to fill creeks, lakes, basins, but we'll see what the spring brings.  In the meantime, I have been trying to tick off indoor chores and projects, and working on garden things.   We have started a handful of seedlings:  basil, foxgloves, verbascum, lavender, rosemary, onions and something new to us, naranjilla .  We have varying levels of success.  The naranjilla did take a long time to germinate; I think we used 11 seeds, and we currently have five seedlings, some a couple weeks older than others!  We're still 12-14 weeks out from planting and I...

I've said before  that I failed to appreciate marigolds growing up.  It's nice to have something that does so well in my garden, year after year, and draws butterflies, bees, and other pollinators.  I can't remember the last time I bought marigold seeds, these have been producing in my garden for so many seasons.  I love that they're such a rich red-orange-gold.  I might want another color this year, but I've got plenty of seeds for these!     Over Thanksgiving break, my middle kid deadheaded this whole bed and filled a bucket, so I have more than enough seeds to share this year!  I pulled a big handful apart and set them to dry on newspaper for a few days, and then put them in a jar until I had time to make a packet.   (you don't need the orange part, just the black and white)  I found a seed packet template here .  A blank template was all I needed; printed one, drew a simple outline of a marigold with fine pen, and copi...

January!  It's garden dreaming time.  A few pictures showing the progression of our garden over 2022:  March June July  Happily, I took panorama shots of the yard and gardens a few times last year.  I wish I had remembered to do it every month.  I did get many different wide shots of different spots, it's fun to see how everything progressed and changed.  The shots below get lower because once the tree above starts to fill in, it can block some of the view.   March May July August September October Setting this up made me realize how late the marigolds set in; maybe I'll start a few more inside, this year.   Wins and successes this year include: - the seed starting was a big success! - a decent batch of radishes - lots of good herbs, my favorite being lemon thyme - some tomatoes, especially liked the Black Strawberry cherry toms - a small crop of potatoes, our first, encouraging toward doing more next season - a few nice zucchinis -...

(a little diary of gardening for myself, and maybe you!) Last year, we started seeds on March 18th.    This year, we started seeds on February 27th for two primary reasons.  First, I realized last year that some seed packets recommended 8 to 10 weeks (or even 12 to 24 weeks) and we were a little past that.  Secondly, we had a pretty mild late spring, and could easily have gotten a few more weeks of growing on the front end for tomatoes and things, if I started things inside sooner.  We are three weeks ahead of last year and I think it's going to work out pretty well.   Unfortunately, when I went to get all my old seeds and seed starting supplies, I discovered that every single packet had been nibbled on!  Most of the seeds were gone, those that were left were in jumble at the bottom of the box.  We suspect mice in the shed.  There were a couple of plastic baggies of seeds I had saved, and there were one or two packets with internal foil ...

(I started this post in September, but here at the end of October  mid-November, we still have summer plants alive in the garden - hollyhocks hanging on!)  That is to say, it was a beautiful albeit hot summer at our house, and I happily look back on all the blessings of the season.   Family and friends visited, we had some lovely peonies, roses and other flowers; we went rafting and fishing and drove to the Northern Woods; saw the World's Biggest Dilly Bar, hockey stick, a beautiful stave church, and a couple of homes that Grandpa lived in when he was a kid.  We had a windy, smoky picnic with old friends, and lots of laughs with great-aunts and uncles.  We visited The City, and farms, and cemeteries and so much more.   We're in a new season of life; nothing bad, just different, and a little busier.  A lot less knitting, but still knitting.  Morning by morning, new mercies I see.