Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The Gardener's Dreams




I've had seed catalogs stacking up on the shelf of my coffee table for months now. Finally, it is nearing mid-March and I'm ready to order seeds. So far, my order is going to be through Seed Savers, a favorite heirloom seed source that I've ordered from in the past - always with nice results.

Limerick wants to make pickles this summer, so we're ordering A&C Pickling Cucumbers. Dill self seeds here virgorously, so I haven't had to order that in years! *grin* I am planning to order the Seed Savers Lettuce Mixture which includes Amish Deer Tongue, Austrailian Yellowleaf, Bronze Arrowhead, Forellenschuss, Lollo Rossa, Pablo, Red Velvet and Reine des Glace. It sounds delicious and colorful. I can hardly wait for a summer salad!

I am going to try growing soybeans as an experiment. They are grown commercially in my state, so I am imagine they will grow well here. The variety I'm going to try is called "Envy." This is the year I'm going to try growing Potimarron, an aromatic chestnut-like winter squash from France. It has intrigued me for several years, but I always turn it down in favor of the tried and true. And, I'm going to grow a bit of the herb Stevia here to add to some herbal tissanes. It is nice to have natural sweetness, so that my children aren't tempted to add a lot of processed sugar!



This photo taken in the early hours of the morning shows part of the garden area as it appears at this time of year. This part of the yard will be verdant and lush by mid-summer, filled with beds of herbs and vegetables, fruit trees and berry bushes, roses amid the tea garden, and hollyhocks by the playhouse. In these days of middle-March, the garden sleeps, but the gardener's dreams are green and growing.


photos by Aisling, March 2008 1) seed catalogs 2) dill seed head 3) overlooking the vegetable garden area

7 comments:

Michele said...

Aisling, I can't wait to hear more about this year's garden! It's warming up here so I'm already buying herbs for mine. :-)

Marcie said...

Rapunzel, Thank you for coming by! I hope you will post about your garden endeavors too! What herbs have you gotten so far?

Anonymous said...

Oh, I can hardly wait to see your garden as it grows. Mine is nearly finished; it's the ugly end of summer for us.

I'd love to hear what you think of the stevia when you grow it, how productive, easy to harvest etc it is.

Kate

Marcie said...

Kate, I'll be sure and report on the Stevia as it grows. I think to use it as a sugar substitute (in the completely powdered form) you would have to grow a lot of it.

The end of summer is a poignant time, isn't it? All the pleasures of autumn will soon be yours, however! I hope the autumn brings rain to your part of the world.

Michele said...

Aisling, the only thing that survived from last season is the dill weed! It has literally taken over my garden, lol. Yesterday I bought parsley, rosemary, basil, a tomato plant and a jalapeno plant for Beren. I'm planning to get my hands dirty tomorrow, can't wait!

Marcie said...

Rapunzel, What fun! Is rosemary perennial there? I always have to bring it in for the winter and it never survives the dry heat of the house. I end up getting a new one each year.

I think I'll try putting in some cool season crops in the first part of April: peas, spinach, chard. I've never done it that early, but the seed packets say "as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring" so I'm going to see what happens!

Debbie said...

Hiya Aisling!

It's me again! Stopping by with another meme if ya wanna play. If not that's ok too. Either way, just know that I'm thinking of you.....

Lovin' twinkles,
Prairie Star