@smiley7

Hope all is well in your corner. Our garden is pretty easy. We manured and mulched in early winter. We've already planted more lettuce, snow peas, garlic, and onions. we'll have to put on the row covers this week. Low temps in the low 20's and upper teens later next week.

Back when I was in your area, there was snow on the ground till March, and then additional snows into May. Guess those days are a thing of the past.

Have a good one!

wish i were still gardening so as to use some of the techniques in these Watches.

Wonderful info, thank you.

We have a lime problem up here or should i say lack of lime; Uncle Ned used to say, "All the lime's washed down to the sea." Thankfully, these high valleys have rather deep soil and is not as rocky as the foothills.

Right on cue, rain returned and will be followed by a deep freeze for a few days. UGH, i'm ready for Spring and as you know that takes until May up here.

Anyways, "keep on Gardening," love the work.

@Raggedy Ann

daffodils are blooming along with quince, forsythia, spirea, and other early bloomers. Going to get zapped with temps in the teens later this week. Hope you find something useful in today's catalogue.

Have a nice day!

Great videos about soil - can’t wait to watch. We are warming in fits and starts, so I know spring is coming. I was in Santa Fe, yesterday, and the snow on the Jemez Mountains made them look majestic. It’s snowing up there today - we’re expecting rain Friday.

Have a beautiful Sunday, everyone!

@studentofearth

but sounds like I should.

I think animals are essential to restoration.
Joel Salatin - Polyface farm is an incredible integrated system. Here's his channel...
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNXzf4qLwpDXV2R2Kn_z5DQ

Way more than my homesteading vision, but so well engineered for the entire system.

Best of gardening to you as spring beckons.

interesting. It helps me understand where some of my practices may have originated. I have used hay mulch since the 1980's after taking care of an acerage developed by a Great Aunt & Uncle for a season. He passed after the extremely large garden was planted. It required little weeding, primarily harvesting and the desert soil need not need frequent watering. After reviewing the Ruth Stout info in the Weekly Watch, I am sure she was their inspiration to try. In their younger years they had used more labor intensive practices, an inexpensive way to create an exercise routine.

My focus has been primarily livestock was given my first cow at 2 years old. My Dad was a little excited with his new farming adventure and two daughters. When I bought this acreage found a monthly publication The Stockman Grass Farmer and it shifted my primary management practices from livestock to grass and the health of the supporting soil. Alan Nation was right if I managed the soil health by default it improved livestock health and profit. The current editor's focus is on fast business growth and the wise advice is no longer.

Have you ever read Allan Nations book The Moving Feast : A Cultural History of Heritage Foods in Southeast Mississippii?

Five things Allan Nation believes a visitor should know about South Mississippi.

1. This was the first and last frontier. South Mississippi was the original cowboy country. Spain envisioned South Mississippi as a huge cattle ranch to feed their canefield workers in Cuba and pioneered the cattle breeds and technology needed three hundred years ago.

2. South Mississippi was incredibly beautiful prior to the industrial forestry area with widely spaced towering virgin pines, spreading live oaks and pastureland. All rivers all ran crystal clear and yellow fever and malaria were unknown.

3. South Mississippi could look like this again. Integrating cattle and meat goats with forestry improves the growth of the trees and reduces the need for burning. Sheep go well with pecan trees. Pigs are symbiotic with hardwood forests.

4. The Indians really had our climate figured out. We need to study historic Native American agriculture in South Mississippi.

5. Sweet potatoes are good healthy food. Eat some everyday.

@Fionnsboy

on the wonder of gardening, and the way it draws you into nature...making you feel a part of the larger system. The Heavenly blue fills the fence of our garden entrance in the summer. I'll keep an eye out for the Japanese Imperia.

Ipomea are hard seeded. Scoring the seed with a triangular file will help the seed imbibe water and sprout. https://homeguides.sfgate.com/ways-germinate-white-moonflower-seeds-4050...

I like to use heated pads under my seedlings. They are available commercially...
https://www.johnnyseeds.com/tools-supplies/seed-starting-supplies/seedli...

...or you can make your own...
http://www.vegetablegardener.com/item/11658/diy-heat-mat-speeds-seed-sta...

Best of gardening joy to you!

...when my Mom sent up an article from a Florida newspaper about 'lasagna' gardening. Like some other things in life, as soon as I read it, it made perfect sense and I knew instinctively it was right. I dumped 6 inches of leaves (stepped on and watered down) on my garden that winter, then about the same measure of composted horse manure, then 2" of salt marsh hay. My tomatoes that year crawled into the driveway!!! Since then I throw whatever I have at hand (leaves, salt marsh hay-- the farm down the street (the last one in town) went horse-free a few years back so no more manure--) and then come spring, I just pull back the top and plant seedlings or seeds. I used to rthrow my garbage just underneath the layer of salt marsh hay, but then rats came so I don't do that anymore. It's so wonderful-- magical really.

I started this plot about 18 years ago, and when I first dug up the soil (if one could call it that...) it was charcoal-grey inert dust, half of which floated away as I lifted it with my spade. It pleases me so much now to engage with this black and fecund richness, to smell it, feel it, see the worms in it, etc. At first I had two small plots on either side of the front door; now the plots have expanded to the edge of the driveway (wish I had a few acres!). The plot to the left was the flower garden; the veggies went to the right, which plot was about twice the size as the flower garden. As time went on, and I became aware of, and then alarmed at, the plight of pollinators, I pulled up the non-natives from the flower garden, and replaced them with natives. It pleases me so much to see them come now-- build it and they will come-- that the native flowers have now mostly taken over (by my hand) the veggie garden, though I must still have: scallions; pole beans; kale (which does incredibly well here); and a few tomatoes in pots up against the back wall. I can go to the grocery store or local farmners' markets-- the pollinators can't. I should point out I live on a major 4-lane highway. I can't tell you how much I delight in the hundreds and hundreds of bees (various sorts) butterflies, moths, hummingbirds, etc that visit, as the cars and trucks go racing past; (though it's very quiet on non-rush hour times). On holiday weekends, the Friday afternoon traffic comes to a standstill in front of my house, and many trapped motorists look and call out praise-- or just look. I hope many are inspired to go and do likewise. Never ever ever have used any kind of chemical fertilizer or pesticide-- wouldn't even if I needed to. My Milkweed and Joe-Pye Weed get to 8 and 9 feet tall, as do some kind of wild perennial sunflower (perhaps a Helenium? or Rudbeckia?) I pilfered by the side of the road just before that particular parcel of earth was wiped clean for a new condo development. Oddly enough, the largest amount of bees I have ever seen in my life were visiting a 'waste space' chain-linked old-- parking lot maybe? Something-- on the east Somerville-Charlestown line (I live just north of Boston) where hundreds and hundreds of goldenrod-- a veritable spree of goldenrod-- had deigned to grow. These were VERY late in the season-- and several now reside in my garden, and extend the pollinators' feast into mid-November. I try to look at the garden as a stage, and as one major player exits, I try to think of who shall come to the fore next, to feed the pollinators. And the night show can be even more rewarding, which is why I plant some highly-fragrant white flowering things (e.g, Nicotiana) here and there.

Before I moved here 20 years ago, I had a garden in a neighboring town. One idyllic 'nothing so rare as a day in June' afternoon, dreaming cumulus crowds adrift in a cobalt sky, it seemed to me the clouds were slowing down to take a look at my garden-- of course they were more than welcome. This garden was in the form of an allee, two mirror borders 25' long, separated by a six-foot wide stretch of lawn, leading to a home-made pond with waterfall. Heaven! I was on my knees, weeding, making my way along. At one point I became aware of this intermittent buzzing-- gone, then back again. I was just under the birdbath at that point, and very very slowly-- but inevitably, like a moonrise-- I raised my head and observed an apparently thirsty bee, making circles around the edge of the birdbath like a plane waiting to land at a busy airport. I darley (this is a made-up phrase in my family-- combining 'barely' and 'I hardly dared--') breathed as I watched the bee land at the dry end of the birdbath, then work her way down to the edge of the water on these exquisite, stilty, thread-like legs as red and delicate as saffron. It paused, seeming to smell the water-- my enchanted eye perhaps 3" away-- then, satisfied, it bent its body to drink. A miraculous little salmon-colored tongue came out, and as the bee drank, I could see little swallow-gulps pulsing further down its body. Nunc dimittis! I had never entertained the idea before that bees drank water (duh!), and this seemed so extraordinary to me-- to learn this, and to witness it-- that I had to restrain from cavorting. The funny thing is, no doubt I did many things that summer-- went away a lot, probably 'hooked up' a number of times (my weekend destination was P-Town in those days-- nuff said), ate a number of great meals, saw this, and saw that-- but the only memory that remains of that entire summer was this, as if the Great Curtain had drawn back, and I was given a glimpse of that which is ordinarily hidden. How lucky was I among mortals!

Finally I would like to point readers to this wonderful online book, provided free-of-charge, by a retired Jesuit who returned home to Kentucky to find nature-- and people-- under assault. His remedy was to turn empty parking lots into community gardens. The book is called 'Spiritual Growth through Domestic Gardening' and is quite enjoyable, quite rewarding, and full of strange little enchantments (massaging Mother Earth, for example.) It can be found just by googling the name of the book.

Oh, one more finally-- I usually end up finding something new and exciting to grow every year-- since my very very favorite flower in the world (or one of them anyway) is Heavenly Blue Morning Glories (plant them by a door or window and it's like the big bluey sky rushing in to greet you every morning), this winter I came across Japanese Imperial Morning Glories, Ipomea nil as botanists call them. The Japanese have been growing them since about the year 900, have festivals in their honor, have bred and cross-bred them over and over, have lots of poetry, song, story, and art about them, and often grow them in pots a la bonsai, often removing all other buds to create one MASSIVE bloom (I could go on....). I was like-- wait, WHAT??? And the names of the various varieties!!!! 'Ripples on the Beach,' 'Mountain Streams of Light,' 'Moonlight on Mt. Fuji--' well, you get the idea. Here's the amazing thing-- Morning Glories are native to central and South America, and botanists have no idea how the seed/plant got to Japan centuries before any inter-continental travel. The plants are very chary (we love that word) with their seed, and thus the seed is pricey ($4, $5, $6 and up for ten seeds) and I'm having a challenging time getting them to germinate, or grow once they do germinate (could be my drafty windowsills at night-- they prefer the heat-- at any rate they're sulking) despite OM-ing and OHM-ing and singing at them several times a day-- to say nothing of frequently-dispersed compliments that would (one would think) turn anyone's head.

Sorry for taking up so much of your time for those who are still with me-- whatever baleen of a filter I may possess goes missing (as they say in the nautical world) when the subject turns to gardens. Or coins. Or books. Or politics. Thanks for this diary!