A Stroll Around the Garden

I have been a bit under the weather. I normally don't suffer much with spring allergies any more, but we had some very strong winds blowing recently and the amount of the pollen in the air is enough to choke a horse, so my head is aching and my throat is sore. I have been doctoring the sore throat with a souped up version of my Beat the Blues Detox Drink. I took the basic tonic ingredients and I added double the cayenne, double the honey, and double the lemons, I also added 2 large cloves of garlic. I put it in the blender and gave it a good whirl with a couple of cubes of ice. I will nurse this all day. This will knock out any bacteria that is lurking around in the aggravated throat tissues, and give me a good detox to boot! I am also taking the "Four Thieves" combination of essential oils, clove, lemon, cinnamon,  eucalyptus radiata, and  rosemary, to fight bacterial infection, and my echinacea tincture to boost my immune response. I was feeling crummy all day yesterday, and woke up rocky this morning, but I think my body is getting a head of steam with all the "help" it has had in the last 24 hours, so I know I will be feel like myself soon!

Since I am still feeling sub par, today will not be as busy a day as I had planned, but I will take you on a tour around and show you what is going on in the garden.

Tomato seedlings are out for the day to harden off . The other flats are just getting started, but the weather is finally warm enough to start them outside.

 Romaine lettuce is ready for cutting. Since the weather is beginning to get warm, most of the early lettuce has gone bitter and started to bolt, but some of the lettuce, like the romaine is a little more heat resistant.

Oak Leaf lettuce is sending up flower stalks. I will be pulling them up in the next few days to make room for beets and turnips.

 A honey bee is pollinating the Giant Red Mustard flowers.

 Turnip seed pods are beginning to ripen. I am hoping that they are going to be ready to be pulled up by the time I need the bed for warm weather crops.

 The mature Bright Lights Swiss Chard is going to bolt soon, and the succession crop of chard is planted between the rows. For now I am cutting the flower stalks off  to encourage new growth in order to stretch out the harvest and shorten the "hungry gap" between spring and summer crops.

 The trellised blackberries are covered with blossoms and bees.  Unfortunately, a good portion of our blueberries were burned in an deep chill late in the season, but it looks like the blackberries will make up for the losses!

It has been many years since we had any quantity of honeybees visiting our garden. For the most part we see bumble bees, little tiny bees and wasps, so it is sure nice to see the honeybees again!

I have been harvesting the onions a few at a time and using them to season our salads, and putting slices of the onions with cucumbers in the vinegar left from one of the empty jars of pickled daikon . They make flavorful compliments to simple meals.

The strawberries we replanted last year look like they are going to be fruitful this year...I can't wait!

This is a busy time of year for us, starting seeds, preparing beds, managing the winter crops trying to eek out a couple more week of food, and putting plans in place for more beds to expand our growing area. I also have been spending time enjoying the warmth of the sun, the birds, bees and butterflies and soaking up as much of the pretty spring weather as I can, before it gets too hot. Our spring here is short but sweet and then we have unrelenting heat and no rain to speak of for the whole summer. We have designed our gardens to weather the heat and the drought, by heavy composting and deep mulches to keep the moisture in. I just wish that there was something that I could do that would make me more heat tolerant!

I hope you enjoyed the stroll around the garden with me and that you will come back for a visit soon!
 

Blog Hops that this post is linked to:
Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways #69
Clever Chicks Blog Hop#33

It Is Spring After All

Misty morning at a nearby pasture.

  I have many things that I want to write about, the last part of my pantry keeping post, tips on how to get the most out of your grocery money, but today I just want to talk about how beautiful it is outside. This morning it was frosty and cold,  a mist rose from the grass when the sun hit it and the birds sprang to song as the morning light hit the trees. As I stood outside with the dog, he sniffed at the air, seemingly as distracted by the the awakening world as I was. It was going to be a lovely day.

  Today is Wednesday, so I have the house to myself. My son is at work, and my husband works in the office on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Since I was on my own a took the opportunity to do some things I don't often get to when others are home. I worked on my blog, prepared letters for mailing, and walked around the yard with my camera to catch the garden in it's p.j.'s. The tender leafed veggies always look their crispy best before the sun is warm and strong, so I strolled out and caught the pale early morning sunlight as it streamed through the espaliered fruit trees and struck the tips of the Russian red mustard.

I then made my way around the garden taking pictures of the progress of the  veggies we planted in the fall. Normally, we plant in August/ September for a November/ December harvest and let some of the beds rest the last of the deep cold is gone, the remaining beds will be tucked in with hoop houses and planted with veggies that don't mind some cold. This year, winter arrived early and we never got a fall harvest. The temps. stayed cold enough that the vegetables all decided to hunker down for the winter and waited for the warmer weather of early Spring to arrive before putting on growth. Now we have cabbages heading up, red mustard furling their large deeply crinkled leaves, and fava beans putting on masses of purple and white blossoms. The garlic is looking good with thick sturdy stems and the red and green romaine is ready to go to the salad bowl.

Jersey Wakefield Cabbages begin to head up.

Fava bean flowers

  Once the sun was up and the chill burned out of the air, I stood barefoot at the potting table and planted seeds for some of our warm weather vegetables. The cat came to see what she could help with and had to be dismissed when she almost pushed a watering can full diluted fish emulsion off the deck rail. She went off in a huff to sulk under the rose arbor, her tail twitching to show her displeasure. Today I started yellow pear tomatoes, artichokes, spinach and bell peppers. I fed the flats of Neon and Bright Lights swiss chard, and Detroit Beets. They are ready to go in the ground when I get a few minutes to pop them in. The breeze is blowing and the air is just cool enough to be refreshing. It reminds me of mornings on our mountain in Costa Rica.
   Several projects will demand my attention tomorrow, but for today I am going to enjoy a day without rain and play outside. Tomorrow it is back to work, it is spring after all and there is much to be done!