Posted on

3/20/2019

Hello Spring! This fig tree is quite the tease, tantalizing me with fruit that won’t ripen for another few months!

Happy 1st Day of Spring!

It’s been a busy week. Still recovering from bronchitis and fighting allergies – hello Spring?!? Despite the illness, the teaching, and the symphony set I’m frantically preparing for, I’ve been getting my daily dose of garden therapy. My goal has been to pull a minimum of one 5 gallon bucket of weeds a day. The ground is still wet from all of our rain so it’s been painless to meet my goal. In fact, I’ve been pulling quite a bit more than that. This is a good thing. With all of the rain, then warm, sunny days, then rainy days, then more warmth and sun, the weeds have been growing like gangbusters! I’m itching to get some veggies in but other than transplanting a few celery starts (celery self-sows itself all over my yard), I haven’t done much of that yet. Next week is another week! In the meantime, HAPPY SPRING!

Posted on

3/8/2019

What plans I had . . .

I just needed to get through a particularly grueling work week. Did it, yay! Got up the next morning, went off to my one obligation of the day, came home an hour later with a throbbing headache. Things went downhill from there. Fever, chills, chest congestion, you know, all the fun stuff. Bronchitis. Good times.

Spent 5 days trying not to drown in phlegm, watching old movies, and being absolutely worthless. I was so looking forward to getting a few things done in the garden but didn’t happen at all. The one thing I did harvest regularly and enjoy was my mint. Mint is wonderful for things like nasal congestion, headaches, and muscle spasms – all things I got to experience! I normally use peppermint for this purpose but it is only March and my peppermint is still mostly dormant. It’s just now starting to send out leaves. But for some reason, my spearmint, planted in the same area, never went dormant this year. So, lots and lots of spearmint tea loaded with local honey was consumed this week. It helped immensely with the sore throat and helped clear my sinuses. I think I still prefer the taste of peppermint but for medicinal purposes, the spearmint did just fine!

Naughty Spearmint attempting world domination.

Peppermint – peaking out through last years crab grass! Not quite enough, yet, to get me through a bout of bronchitis.

Posted on

2/26/2019

It’s trash day which means looking up and down the street to see who hasn’t filled their green bin! LOL Yes, I do compost but this time of year I have far more yard waste than is possible for me to compost. I’ve been frantically trying to finish pruning the fruit trees and elderberries. I ended up filling up three of these bins this week:

I am also bidding a fond farewell to my raspberries this week. I’ve grown them for 12+ years in containers and I will miss nibbling on them while I’m out watering. But the amount of water required to produce such a small volume of low calorie food is simply not worth it. Especially since I can buy an entire season’s production for about $5 in the freezer section of my grocery store! I was able to find good homes for almost half of them. 🙂 The large pots and trellis system will be planted with purple sweet potatoes, a much better bang calorically and nutritionally for my limited space and watering restrictions. It’s a bit early, but I am impatiently waiting for the organic sweet potatoes I purchased to start sending out slips. I couldn’t find any locally so I ordered a case (50lbs) from my local grocery store for$48. We’ve been eating lots and lots of sweet potatoes lately! I’ll post some of our favorite recipes in the recipe section. The sweet potato brownies were surprisingly good – even my husband ate them! And forget oatmeal for breakfast, try roasted purple sweet potatoes and apple sprinkled with cinnamon and chopped pecans. YUMM! I’ll miss my raspberries but I’m looking forward to my sweet potatoes!