by Noel | Apr 28, 2009 | Gardening
I’ve really only been in my garden for two days this spring. The first time out I weeded strawberries and that was it. Today, I did a little here and there trying to catch up after two weeks on the road. Since I’m on the road again tomorrow until next Tuesday, I took the afternoon off to garden. I’m constantly trying to prove to myself that one can maintain a large vegetable garden in spite of a hectic travel schedule. It’s possible, but...
by Anneliese | Apr 25, 2009 | Gardening, Recipes
I harvested our first shiitakes of the year yesterday. We’ve had a lot of rain this month, and the weather finally warmed up. Perfect conditions for the shiitakes to start fruiting. These shiitakes are from logs that Noel plugged two years ago. He and his friend Michael recently plugged a new set of logs with mushroom spawn, but it will probably be a few months before the new ones start to fruit. I still haven’t eaten the mushrooms that I harvested...
by Anneliese | Apr 21, 2009 | Environmental Issues
I don’t exactly know when this happened, but I discovered it at 5:45pm today, and it wasn’t like that at 4pm when I left for the post office. We’ve had three days of pretty steady rain, and the wind has been rather gusty today, so I guess this is what can happen. We’re pretty lucky it fell in the direction it did — that tree was right next to power lines! On the plus side, now we can scratch “Chop down old dead tree” off...
by Anneliese | Apr 15, 2009 | Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, Gardening
Today was a good Bloom Day. The weather was beautiful, and we actually had a few different blooms. Spring might just finally be here to stay. Noel and Judy are leaving tomorrow for the Cincinnati Flower Show , so we all spent a lot of time outside today while loading the van and getting other tasks done. These Scillas are planted around the base of the hickory tree by our back door. They keep creeping farther into the lawn each year, but nobody minds. That part of...
by Noel | Apr 12, 2009 | Gardening
I started my tomato seeds today. A little late, but I think I’ll be okay. My flats hold 28 five ounce Dixie cups almost perfectly. I usually start about 30 different tomatoes. So with one cup of tomatillo seeds pushing the cup count to 31, here is the result. My potting soil is a blend of half Jiffy® mix and half an organic potting soil called Sunshine® that I picked up at Paradigm Gardens, a relatively new store here in Madison that specializes primarily in...
