Today was the edible festival at a local greenhouse. I attended a short talk by the greenhouse manager/master gardener, and decided that I needed to add some stuff to my plots. Tomatoes, dill, lettuces (too lazy to wait for the seed to spring from the ground), broccoli, spinach, eggplant, basil. I think that covers everything. So, now I need to obsessively watch the over night temps to make sure they do not hit the brr point. If they do, I can cover things, so I should be safe enough.

It sure feels weird to be planting so early in the year. To add to the weirdness, I had to mow my front lawn as the weeds were a foot high (grew like that in the last 4-5 days)!! Planting and lawn mowing all in the same day, must be spring.

The weather was not bad this past week. Still mostly gray, but there were a few sunny days so I won't complain this week. I am looking forward to the next few weeks as temps should begin to sneak up on 70 fairly soon!

Not much else going on, it has been fairly quiet here lately. Allergies are bugging me and Daph a bit right now, but tis the season and all that.

Photos of the garden:


Bed west

From March 6, 2010

Bed east

From March 6, 2010

The Daphster

From March 6, 2010

From Garden

NOTE: The eggplant still needs to be planted. tbp = to be planted

From Garden

It is a beautiful spring day (58 F right now). We took a dissertation break this morning and ended up at Calloway's. As anyone will tell you, walking away from a greenhouse without anything is impossible, we left with some veggies, some herbs, and a cyclomen (not pictured). I have labeled my garden plots and hopefully will be able to show some growth over the next few months. It is fun to get dirty hands in February. :)

A huge confluence of events occurs today!
1. It's garbage day!
2.It's my birthday!!

I am going to spend my birthday doing some gardening. There are still a few small things I need to take care of in the back yard (we ignore the front for the moment) including cutting back the purple fountain grass. In the boxes, I need to finish setting one up (laths and poles), and I will be doing some planting today as well.

It is the season to plant leafy and root crops, so today I will plant lettuce, spinach, brocoli (not sure if this one will work, it may get to hot to quick for it), radishes, carrots, beets, swish chard, and dill. Tis the season to experiment, so it will be interesting to see what grows and what doesn't. It is a little early still, but I feel it is necessary to do some gardening on my birthday simply because I have never done so before.

As for a celebration, I will likely go to a local Indian restaurant (Kokila) for supper. Later I will have a cherry and almond cookie with some vanilla flavored coconut ice-cream. Much as I like the soy ice-cream, I can't eat it anymore. The cookies are great, I made them last night and was forced to test their quality. All of the cookies I have tried from Isa's vegan cookies cookbook have been amazing. If you are looking for a cool cookie cookbook, you can't go wrong with that one.

Oh, I will likely make a bit more salsa today as well. I made a batch last night, and accidently made it too hot to consume comfortably. So, I figure if I make another batch without heat, then mix the two, I should have a consumable condiment. I am making my own salsa as I am not pleased with the kinds I have found at the local stores.

It has been a long, gray winter. I am tired of the cold, the snow, the wet, the dingy gray, the garbage, the cold, the gray. I really need some warmer weather, some sunshine, some bright green, and some flowers. Texas has too many seasons for me (I would gladly lose winter).

Happy birthday too me!

This has been a quiet week. The weather finally improved, at least for a few days. I have moved some house plants outside, but will have to drag them back in Monday night. More s$#$w is forecast for that night, though the forecast for the rest of the month shows steady improvement. March is nearly here, so the temperatures really do need to start warming up so I can get some green into my life.

OH! I stepped outside to check on the onion sets I planted last month, and there is signs of onion growth. Small green shoots are poking through the soil! They took far longer than one might have expected due to the cold weather, but they are growing. On the down side, the tomato seeds I planted way back when have not grown. I am trying to restart them once more, this time keeping them a little cooler (I think the previous set up was too hot) and a little less wet. The technical term is damping off I do believe, and I am convinced that is what happened to mine. Hopefully I will get this thing figured out eventually. I have not tried to grow tomatoes inside since grade 1 or so. Though that is not really that long ago.

Back to virtual ref work for me.

I may haul Carol off to a great veggie grocer tomorrow morning depending on the weather. We miss the farmer's market in Raleigh. Best place ever.

additional photos of the 2010 blizzard

feb 12 2010

According to the weather office we received approximately 10 inches of the cold wet white stuff.

Enough winter already!!

I woke up aching this morning. Seems like the cold weather common up north is no longer something I handle well.

Icky, unprocessed, images of a winter in Texas:

texas snow