FIRST GARDEN UPDATE FOR 2012

FIRST GARDEN UPDATE FOR THE YEAR!!!! Can you imagine? At 72 degrees today, I could not stand it any longer... I have cleaned out the Pea Patch. Frank pounded in a couple metal fence posts for me and the strings are up. I am tired of rotting wood posts, and amazingly the metal posts cost less than wood when you figure they won't have to be replaced in 2 years. But best of all, the weeds are pulled (mostly turnip greens) and the onion bed is clean and ready for the onion sets I bought last week. Sweets. Then, since I was already in the same area, I cleaned up the small asparagus bed and the strawberry patch. Figured I might as well, I will be too "stove-up" tomorrow to do it anyway, plus, I was already sitting on the ground (not intentionally) so I might as well keep pulling. Once I managed to get up, I was not going back down... 'course, the trick was getting back up!

It was, or is, difficult to remember it is February. The daffodils are blooming. The forsythia is showing color. The roses have their baby leaves... sigh.
The birds are starting to make their nesting sounds... seeing and hearing robins don't mean much. I have a small flock that winter here. They have had an easy winter. The snow geese are on the move again - huge flocks have been flying over. When I say huge, I am talking thousands Really. They make so much noise, it is easy to keep track of them. The ponds are snow white, some of the fields are white... I am not a farmer, so I think it is beautiful. I understand not everyone feels this way. But they don't eat any of my crops. If I had to worry about that, one goose would clean up my garden in short order! But, It feeds us... and I still find it exciting to go out in the yard and pick something I am going to eat for lunch or dinner... or pick berries for my cereal. No chemicals, not even any chemical fertilizers, and my cow manure comes from field grazed cows... remember? Like they used to do? Cows in the pasture? What a novel idea. Home grown food. Not crap from China or some other country with worse rules than we have, and folks, we have bad rules when you consider GMOs, pesticides, herbicides, and tons of chemical fertilizers. If you are close to my age, you will have noticed food just doesn't taste like you remember it from when you were a kid, does it? Even many of the tomatoes from farm markets taste like cardboard these days. Why? They have been genetically modified so they look prettier, grow bigger, ripen faster... Didja ever notice cherry tomatoes are sweeter than regular tomatoes? The goal is not to take all that flavor and stretch it into a huge tomato, so it is sweeter. Now the big thing is grape tomatoes. They grow fast, are harvested in weeks, and have tough skins so they can stand rough treatment without bruising. But how do they taste to you? Lots of chemicals in those tiny red things.

I am keeping my eye on the weather forecast. Mid 70s tomorrow, but probably rain. If I can move and it doesn't rain, I will get another area ready. Then Sunday, highs in the mid 40s.