Hello Again!

Hello Again....

My Dad has been nagging me to get back to writing on my blog. It has been a while. I apologize.

I can't remember why I stopped writing. I know I took photos between August and October.  I just never sat down to write.

Then Superstorm Sandy hit right at the time I should have been putting my garden to bed. We lost a few weekends cleaning up from that and the 12 inches of snow that followed a week later. ( I also lost all the frozen herbs and produce from my garden during the power failure after Sandy. Knowing what others lost,  this is nothing. I am blessed.)
My beautiful gray cat, Smokey, got sick and died.
Kids moved back home. We are still planning a wedding in the back yard.
The garden was just pushed to the back of my mind.

But here it is, March, and it is time to order seeds. I have spent the weekend going through my seeds and determining what will be planted this year and what needs to be ordered. What new plants will I try this year and which ones will go away as not successful in my Potager.  And which ones that were tried last year without success, will get one more chance to shine in the garden.  So much planning and replanning. I am looking forward to what actually comes to fruition in the Potager!

In the meantime, you may enjoy finding out what happens when a garden is totally ignored in the fall. I did remove the dead plants before Christmas but left a good deal behind apparently. I was a bit surprised to find there were plants growing on a chilly Sunday afternoon.

The raddichio that never turned red last year and never headed is up and heading nicely. It is finally red.

A red cabbage is growing where I never planted red cabbage. And hello - bugs are already eating it? It's barely above freezing here!

This sorry looking brussel sprout plant is producing new sprouts. (And the weeds are growing too!)

The shallots (left) and garlic (right) are coming up.



And the Red Russian and Siberian Kale are living up to their cold loving reputation. These would have done wonderfully if I had a cold frame. This is so on my list for the fall this year.

It's a bit of a mess, but I will get it back into shape. That's what I love about gardening.  Every spring there is a new chance to do it better.

"Gardening is something you learn by doing - and by making mistakes, like cooking, gardening is a constant process of experimentation, repeating the successes and throwing out the failures." - Carol Stocker, American gardening columnist.