Kale, Kale, Kale, The Early Sounds of Spring in Our Gardens

Season 6, Episode 13, February 14, 2024

and

Feb 13, 2024

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! On this week’s episode, we discussed some topics requested by our listeners. We discussed verbenas, early leafy greens and root crops, and so much more.

Winter aconites (and pansies!) in my Garden

But first, our favorites. Carol’s favorite things are her hyacinths on vase and her Lego roses in our Valentine above. My favorites are these reusable Burpee seed trays. They aren’t cheap, but you can use them for years. My other favorite things were my winter aconites that just started blooming this week.

At listener Beth Teel’s request, our flower topic this week is the many-varied Verbena sp. Carol is growing Verbena 'Bampton' from seeds from Nan Ondra at Hayefield. We can attest that Nan sells fabulous seeds. I bought ‘Bampton’ plants from Select Seeds because I couldn’t get the seeds to sprout last year.

We both like and have grown V. bonariensis ‘Vanity’, an All-America Selection.

*V. bonariensis in my tiered borders. I have it everywhere, and it’s a great see-through plant.*

If you’re worried that V. bonariensis is invasive, here are some native ones:

V. hastata (American blue vervain,) V. stricta (hoary vervain,) and V. halei (Texas vervain.)

As for vegetables, we chatted about what we’re growing or not in our cold-weather veggie gardens. Carol wrote a Family Handyman article on how to grow radishes, and here is our episode about spring, fall, and summer radishes. I would say Carol likes radishes better than kale. Frankly, I like turnips better than either radishes or kale.

On our bookshelf this week is The Hummingbirds’ Gift: Wonder, Beauty, and Renewal on Wings by Sy Montgomery. In connection with the book is my blog post on ten plants to naturally attract hummingbirds.

Bignonia capreolata Crossvine — *Bignonia capreolata*, crossvine, is a great plant to attract hummingbirds.

For our dirt, who wants to grow a new purple tomato, one of the first GMO plants available to home gardeners? Anybody?

In more exciting news, Carol and I are helping out with the Book Authors Talk Gardening, sponsored by the National Garden Bureau on March 7th at 7 pm - a free event! Here’s the registration link.

Down my rabbit hole, I’ve been on the Zinnia Express, and here’s my zinnia plan for this year along with an Instagram reel on zinnias from last summer. I also read Margaret Roach’s article/discussion with Don Tipping of Siskiyou seeds. For her rabbit hole, Carol found another lost lady of garden writing. Here’s her Substack newsletter about Kate L. Brewster. Then, Carol wrote a blog post with Kate’s plant labeling advice.

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