04-05-2013 The weeks of whys!

Why does this Spring feel like winter?
Why is it so cold?
And, next week: why is it so hot already?
 
We are now so used to, at the click of a button or the swipe of a symbol to get what we want that we still wonder why we can't better control the weather. Hence all those "why" questions.

The weather is doing what it has done even before we showed up on this earth and, while we understand it a little better, we still have absolutely no control over it much to the pleasure of weirdos like me who don't mind the unexpected and cherish whatever shows up (Providing it's not a late frost, or a prolong drought! :) :) :)  )

So, the last few days, we've lived our usual ups and downs for this time of year with a couple of gorgeous days followed by a dreary wet one interrupted by sleet.

I promise you, in a few weeks we'll all cry for a cool day! And don't forget, unlike 90 % of humanity at large, we have had a choice and made it to live here, in good old North Carolina, drawn here by its beautiful mountains, its gorgeous beaches, a paying job, or...a woman. But we all made the choice to live in a place where Spring can be missed if you blink, where Fall is totally amazing (If only those darned skitters would die a little earlier in the year!) Summer is unbearably muggy and Winter feels like Summer in Poland.

In any season, beauty prevails:

In any case, the few nice hours have been put to use: most of the hen bits and Carolina geraniums have been pulled but for one section. The rain has helped everything else grow and leaf out; the whole place starts to look like a garden again and not a desolate collection of wood chips and row covers.

Here are the hen bits that keep me busy at this time of year. I appreciate that, in Winter, they cover most of the garden, keeping it soft and moist. At this time of year, they provide me with a lot of exercise and tons of vegetable matter for my compost pile. To dust ye shall all return...!

 

Last week I mentioned using Wall-o-Water to keep some plants warm on cold days. This is what it looks like:

With a few tomatoes seedlings growing cosily inside even on a cold day.

Tulips, like many flowers, open only to the sun's caress. On a gray, rainy day, they stay close to protect their pollen from being washed away by the rain and wasted.

This one loves the rain

Likewise, most of those pear blooms have closed their petals but for this one; it is now old enough to not have any pollen left. The anthers show no "yellow stuff"

The heart of a tulip on a sunny day

In just a few weeks, this bloom will be a scrumptious strawberry!

03-31-13 Raining!

Raining! I feel bad for all who were looking forward to an Easter sunrise service. This morning, not too many people saw the sun rise!

On the good side: as a drought-averse gardener, I always appreciate free irrigation from above and, the rain is forcing me to stay in so that I can finally write the blog I intended to get to a couple of days ago.

The last two days have been glorious. Finally! I have taken advantage of the better temps for two things: weeding and transplanting.

I love those mini tulips but can't seem to be able to take a good picture of them. They look much btter than this!

Weeding: at this time of year, the garden is pretty much covered with weeds that overwintered, protecting the top soil and keeping it moist. Two things I appreciate, but now it is time to put them on the compost pile before they produce new seeds. To quote my neighbor David (Yes, the one with the peach tree!) if we could only produce vegetables with the vigor, resistance and persistence of weeds...

Transplanting: as most of you know, I start my Summer vegetables under a grow lamp in my wife's boudoir (The only room to have a wide enough sill.)
I took advantage of the two warmer days to move them to larger containers and new dirt to help them develop a god root system before transplanting them in the dirt at the end of April. The eggplants and peppers came out a little smaller than I'd like but they'll catch up. The others look very nice after two days in the new dirt. All this, of course, is kept under shelter since we expect more cold next week.

New crop under light: sweet corn and some of my favorite cucumbers.

What else to do at this time: dig up your garden, unless you have raised beds that don't require tilling.

New fiddle heads on the ferns.

This one's a bumble bee.

The girls are just as happy as I am to see the sun.

03-17-2013 A different year!

Watch those pollen pockets on her legs! I have seen them come home with their legs fully covered in pollen.

What a difference a year makes: I thought things were running a little later this year and, sure enough, when I went back to last year's posts, it was warmer then and many blooms were way more advanced than they are now.

Hyacinths

I first noticed last week after talking to Bob that my fruit trees had not budded yet; a true sign that things are not ready. While Greg Fishel may be good at giving us some form of a five day weather forecast, when it comes to long term, plants and trees do a much better job and, this year, the signal is that they're not ready to come out of hibernation yet.

The good thing though is that yesterday was beautiful and this week should be frost free. At this time of the year, the garden looks better without all these artificial covers protecting my winter greens. Down side: some of the same escaroles and lettuce are going to go straight to seed at the first sight of two/three warm days in a row. The need to reproduce is as strong in lettuce as it is in human beings! The fun level might be a little different though!

Checked my "mean" bees yesterday and the approach of Spring has not soften their mood at all; they were eager to have me for lunch! On the positive side, I have seen some of them working my neighbor's peach tree. David will be happy in a few weeks when harvest time comes.

Landing in pure paradise!

On my side, besides some more clean up, I transplanted a number of young leeks. The old ones have almost all been eaten, a true sign of winter's end. 

Last of the leeks.

Next crop.

The onions are showing their first green tops in time for St Pat's

Future roses being raised for Ann and Peter. Nice new growth!

What I call optimism: looking at these fresh new leaves and tasting in my mouth  the raspberries this baby will produce in a few months. Did I mention you also need a lot of patience when gardening? Who wants to wait so long for raspberries? Or anything for the matter!

Art work on one of my hive tops. My girls may be mean but they appreciate a little artistry in life!

Nice day!

Not quite Spring yet but today was great. That I spent most of it pulling weeds and doing some clean-up did not take away from it.

Great day until I checked the weather this evening with its forecast of more cold days coming earlier than I thought. It'll be time to cover my veggies again.

On the indoor front, my future tomatoes, peppers and other hot weather stuff is growing very cosily in our spare bedroom under a grow light.

Here is what's in bloom today:

Johnny jump ups or violas. I prefer them to most larger pansies. They have more character.

The heart of a red anemone.

Hyacinthe

A future peach; my neighbor David's future peach if my bees do their work.

Not a bloom but I love bamboo; they always look so good!

01-20-2013 Cold, warm, odd!

The last few days, temperatures have see-sawed from frost and a little snow to 68 (20 C) this afternoon. I must say that 68 feels good especially with no humidity and no mosquitoes (yet)

Just like last year, flowers are way ahead of schedule with Daffodils 

and Quince

about three weeks ahead of their "normal" bloom time. Around town, we see Redbuds, Cherries  and Magnolias already in bloom. This allows my bees to collect pollen; and they do. This afternoon, they were in full harvesting mode:

Notice yellow pollen on bees' legs.

I just hope the queen does not lay eggs yet because this will get very cold on Tuesday. While bees can wrap themselves around the queen and keep her warm on a cold night, they have no way to protect the eggs or pupae spread over several frames.

Veggies:
 
Still eating kale, escaroles, leeks and I still make chervil soup on a regular basis.
For the last few years, growing carrots has been a real challenge with lack of rain or warm seasons. This winter has been the perfect "summer" for carrots with nice temps and good, regular amount of rains. They come out of the ground nice and cool and with an amazing crunch.

Don't worry! I washed it before eating it within minutes, giving a new meaning to fresh food.

01-01-2013 Warm winter disaster!

The weather has been very pleasant around the Triangle, with hardly any frost and some absolutely gorgeous days: nice temps, low humidity and no mosquitoes. Better than Summer!

The "big one" on the right hand side and the "mean ones" on the left,higher up.

On the down side, my bees should all be hibernating, staying inside their hives keeping the queen warm and using this summer's honey storage to feed her and her subjects.

Unfortunately, every day I have enjoyed for its mild temps has been a day when my bees have been flying around, using up too much energy and too much stored food.

I have been feeding them additional sugar syrup to make up for the extra feeding and at the end of last week, on a pretty day, I opened each hive to verify their status and needs.

The first one I opened "the big hive" named for its size, has had a troubled history, barely surviving a similar pleasant winter last year with only about a third of its full strength which could have gone either way. Came Spring, its population rebounded in no time and increased magnificently, hence its larger size. Came late Fall and early Winter, it started showing stress again with a number of dead bodies dragged out every morning for me to see and dispose of. I could tell the queen was troubled, unhealthy or dying. At any other time of the year, I would have acquired a new queen, replaced her and re-start a healthy colony. At this season, you just can't re-start a new hive and, by the time I opened it, its whole population had perished. 
These were my "quiet bees", always in a good mood. I could open their hive without protection; they would come check who I was but never stung me.

I moved to my second hive, "the mean ones" who would always act aggressively when approached too closely. With those, I always had to fully protect myself; they showed no mercy. When I opened their hive this time, they immediately sent an armed patrol my way. The good thing is their population looked good and healthy. I re-filled their feeder and lefty them alone.

For those of you who might express doubt at a hive having a certain "attitude", I'd like to remind that a normal hive has about 30,000 females in there. Don't tell me that 30,000 females can't cop an attitude!

My "hard working ones"

My greatest surprise came when I opened my third hive, the one located in the front yard and nicknamed "the hard workers" because, last Spring, in no time did they produce more honey then the two others. They were amazing. I opened and heard and saw nothing. I lifted the top "super" nice and heavy, full of neatly sealed honey cells but not a single bee to be seen and no dead bodies at the bottom. I inspected every comb for signs of intruders, parasites or diseases. Nothing but a very clean hive with no occupant. I did remember that a few days earlier when the weather reached the mid 70s, their whole population had been very active, too active but, since many of them were still bringing in pollen, I did not panic. Big mistake! What happened during those really warm days is that the queen got confused, figured it was now Spring and chose to take the whole colony to another location (very frequent in Spring and early Summer.) It also means that, at this time of year they all flew to certain death. They had no possible way to start a new colony with the nutrition dearth now available. So there went my "hard workers", my best hive. Had I better understood the situation, I would have placed a queen excluder to bar the front entrance allowing worker bees to go through while the queen and her larger abdomen would have been forced to stay in keeping all workers around her. 

At the next pretty day, I'll remove the super full of honey and add it to my "mean" bees to finish consuming before Spring.

I am now down to one healthy hive out of three. I'll need to buy more bees this Spring and re-start two colonies. I just hope nothing happens to the "meanies". My neighbor David and his peach tree are waiting for their pollination magic in just a few weeks.

12-21-2012 Winter gardening.

It is hardly credible to be talking about winter gardening when we get some gorgeous, sunny 65 degree days!

Not so long ago, winter gardening meant that, in early September, you started seeds for some rugged vegetables that would have to endure the cold weather out there in the garden with limited protection.

After last year and, in spite of all the deniers, things have changed and the gardener has to change right along even though (s)he does not know any better than anybody else what to expect: a freezing cold winter or a beautifully pleasant  improvement over the summers we get around here? After all, 65 and no mosquito feels like paradise! You can actually do some work out there without melting away.

Adjustment is the word of the day! Adaptation! To what? We're not totally sure but we also cannot keep doing what we were just a few years ago and hope to get the same results.

Expectation: because we now never know for sure what will work or not, we do know for sure to expect some losses. This year were my head lettuce that went to seed before filling up. Head lettuce is so much tastier than leaf lettuce thanks to crunchy heart but it also requires constant cool weather, not the ups and downs we have been getting lately.

Experimentation: if the solid experience and history is not reliable enough any more, our best choice is trying some experimental planting that has a fifty/fifty chance of success. I now have two beds of young head lettuce and escarole that might produce in spring. Or not! Something I would not have tried just a few years ago. I am also trying some fennel that usually freezes around here.

Appreciation that no matter what we try as human beings, mother nature has the final word and all those in between. In spite of what we might believe or hope, we're here for the ride; we're not really in control. So I'll just keep trying, appreciate the good, chalk off the not so good and be thankful that North Carolina is still green, gets a decent amount of rain and that I get way more out of my garden than I ever lose.

Success stories: 

 My escaroles looked like they were heading the same way as my lettuce but they have turned out absolutely scrumptious, crisp and sweet with a ting of light bitterness, just the way I like them.

Kale: even though they sweeten well after a couple of hard frost, mine tastes very nicely after just a couple of brushes with light frost.

Leeks: I just wished I had more of them but summer was a little too hot and too harsh of them. Now counting on my spring crop.

Chervil (cerfeuil): a tasty herb pretty much unknown around here, great for winter chervil soup. 

And an all time favorite herb I can't live without: parsley. I made sure to plant enough this year. I don't like running out of it.

Onion greens: another taste I like adding to my salads.

Carrots! Fresh carrots, even though they never grow as large as those grown in deep dirt and wetter, cooler climates.







And, of course, the winter garden wouldn't be quite the same without some blooming Johnny Jump Ups: