I try to remember the permaculture principle that a glut of anything is a feast for something, but I don’t really know that I want the population explosion in snakes that would logically follow this mouse plague. I am trying to keep my imagination focussed on lovely storybook owls feasting!
We are coming up to the winter solstice in about three weeks time, but until then the days are still getting shorter. So leafies planted now will not want to bolt, but rather wait until their lovely fine tuned endocrine sensing system tells them the days are getting longer, spring is on its way, and it is safe to set seed.
I have Oceans Eleven being enacted in my garden. I’ve got just nineteen pea seeds up so far this year! I thought it might be birds getting them before they germinated, so I put some net over the boxes in the shadehouse. But they still got got. So I moved the boxes out into one of my fortress fenced garden beds. But they still got got. So I planted all…
If I can keep the routine going, I can harvest a dozen or so carrots pretty well most weeks of the year.
Onions and garlic are pretty well the only fresh foods that I regularly eat out of season.
I’ve planted a tray of Telephone peas, one of Oregon Dwarf Snow Peas, one of Diggers Climbing Snow Peas, and one of Aquadulce Broad Beans. The Aquadulce were chosen because they are an early variety, and this far north our broad bean season is short.
I thought I might share this little trick with you, because it took me a ridiculously long time to think of it. It’s such a simple little trick, but it saves so many failures.
t’s one of the things I like about the lunar planting calendar, that it pushes me to rescue my gardening from the “things that can be put off for a week or so” pile. And that, in turn means I’m tempted to cook with what is fresh and green and gorgeous out of the garden and the packaged and frozen supermarket shortcuts are no competition.
Isn’t sex an amazing thing? That chromosomes split and crossover to create a totally new and unique being? Not once, but every single time, so that every single life is totally unique. Which means that, when I find a good variety, that works well in my microclimate and is resilient in the context of the little ecosystem that is my garden, I try very hard to remember to save seed.
Today I found an errant garlic that escaped harvesting last year, and has decided all of its own accord that it is garlic planting time. Nice to have a vegetable agreeing with me!