Greens ...

It's that time of year!  Despite the snow, sleet or whatever dear Mother Nature throws at us, it's time to start the greens.  Here we have 2 kinds of Romaine lettuce and swiss chard.  Still to be started are arugula and spinach, two of my favorites.  I'm still without a cold frame, but I'm using a clear plastic sweater storage box as a cold frame and it works very nicely.  I did find 2 old window sashes last week so the real deal will be on it's way before too long!

Yesterday morning I did a great mushroom growing workshop at nearby Sharondale Farm.  I didn't take any photos as it was raining most of the time but it was very enlightening and hopefully one of these days this too will become part of my repertoire.  But for the moment, I'm in way over my head with other garden chores plus the everyday survival stuff.  I did come away with a bag of oyster mushroom spawn that will be good for 6 to 8 weeks, so it would be nice to find a fresh poplar or alanthus log to get it going.  If not I'll use a straw bale and hopefully in the fall or next year the mushrooms will become more of a priority.  I've just got too many projects going on at the moment.

We've had snow showers and rain since Friday and though it isn't any where near enough to solve our ground water problems, the plants are really enjoying it and getting greener by the minute.  Here at home the rain gauge is measuring about 3/4 of an inch of precipitation, but we are down well over 5 inches for the year so far.  I'm going to be experimenting with some self-watering container gardening this year as a way to save on water and garden space and will let you know as soon as I start on that and the results.  I'm quite excited by it and am looking forward to the coming weeks as I begin my own food garden along with watching the herbs return!

Comments

[Jen]

Hey Joan! Your starts look great! If you ever need windows...I have some extras.....glad to see you are keeping up the blog, I want ot try that bread...cant wait to see you next weekend!

sending love
jen