Design

It was a perfect winter gardening week: a week of sunny days, including a weekend, followed by an overnight rain. My pea, spinach, arugula, and lettuce seeds should have nicely settled in, along with the onion and leek transplants.

A couple of wonderfully sunny warm winter days were perfect for gardening. I tidied up a forlorn bunch of winter pots and flats (removing frost-nipped plant remnants) and turned over blocks in the main vegetable garden (primarily to help decrease root-knot nematode numbers). I sowed some arugula (a mustard relative that apparently produces compounds that inhibit nematodes) in one of the blocks. It won't germinate for awhile, since the soil is still very cold (~38°F). My plan is to harvest the arugula as the weather gets warmer (and the arugula spicier!) and replace it with French marigolds, which have a similar depressive effect on root-knot nematode numbers. So basically the main vegetable garden will be fallow (vegetable-wise) over the summer and can be brought back into production next season. In its place, I'll be growing tomatoes, peppers, beans, and squash in new raised beds (yet to be constructed). Flats of mesclun, rougette de Montpellier lettuce (a red butterhead va...

More leaves seems to be the theme for preparation for winter in our garden. My gardening companion collected more leaves this morning from neighbors near our small house in the mountains (to add to our already thick layer in front and back of the house), then we returned home to the Piedmont to a second load of delivered city leaves. He spent more time this afternoon moving some of those. Leaves are black gold, certainly, and enrich the soil in our woodland garden areas. Leaves transform clay-rich subsoil to something resembling real topsoil quite quickly. A good thing, although our soil in the Piedmont (covered by lawn for many years) isn't as difficult as what faces gardeners in much of our region. I spent a bit of time harvesting and freezing lemon grass (we're expecting lower temperatures tonight than we've had so far), and then checked everything else. I've got a lovely flat of mache (corn salad) and I'll try to transplant a few plants into soil tomorrow al...

Arriving home, we were surprised at how mild the weather was, definitely warmer than Italy. A clear blue sky, with well-dampened earth (a good thing), greeted a morning check of the garden. Everything is in winter mode now, with deciduous leaves fallen. The garlic is up, as are fava beans, planted in a last minute experiment. The parsley is still green, and the collards look fine. I spent some time reviewing seed catalogs this morning- what fun. We received a giant load of leaves today, thanks to the city's vacuum trunk, an excellent addition for winter mulching. My gardening companion had called before we left, but flagged the driver down this morning.

Even though it's been January weather for us this past November, with more freezing days than we'd had in the fall for some time, it's amazing how well the winter greens in our sheltered vegetable garden next to the Garden's visitor center have done. This photo is earlier in the fall. The small garden is sheltered by a low brick wall, and it's in full sun; apparently enough heat is stored in the brick to temper the overnight temperatures. The snow peas have been frosted, and the purple mustards show signs of frost damage, but fresh leaves continue to appear in both the mustards. The turnip greens, kale, broccoli, and collards are fine, as I'd expect, but the spinach also looks wonderful, and amazingly, the arugula in the mesclun mix is looking fine. Ditto, the lettuces, which must get enough warmth from the wall to be sheltered from frost damage. Perhaps I need to build a wall around some of my beds at home to extend the season!

Osaka red mustard It's been busy this fall, so I've barely been able to get a few new beds changed out, and only planted some (purchased) collards and cabbage plants last weekend. I still need to get the garlic in, hopefully this week, since it's getting late in the season. But a woodchuck has reappeared, so I might as well write off growing kale and cabbage, until s/he is relocated. Our drought continues, unfortunately. Lake Hartwell, next to campus, is remarkably low, and the Army Corps of Engineers announced recently that they couldn't mark all the hazards for boaters because of the low water. But I was encouraged about how well that some of my 'donated' seeds have produced in the protected vegetable garden next to our visitor center (at work). My colleague Kathy had reworked the beds, and recently sown collards, mesclun mix, turnip greens, red-striped mustards, and Osaka purple mustard. They all look great, and some are ready to harvest. She also has ...

One of our first native woodland wildflowers to bloom is Hepatica . Hepatica acutiloba has slightly pointed liver-shaped leaves (the genus name reflects this), while H. americana has more rounded lobes. Spring is definitely on the way when we see the first Hepatica flowers, tucked among the leaves on moist banks, often along stream. Hepatica nobilis is a European species that also flowers early. I remember the excitement that my fellow lab members expressed in a long ago excursion; apparently, it was a German tradition, at least among botanical types, to troop off to see the first Hepatica flowers, even if they were just emerging above the snow! We have a small patch in our Woodland Wildflower Garden at the botanical garden -- flowering through the cold and warm spells of late February. Camellias are stalwarts of southern winter gardens. We're lucky to be able to grow them; our northern neighbors are anxiously hoping for hardier cultivars that are reliable. Ours are droug...