When we recorded this week’s episode, I had about five inches of snow on the ground, and Dee had posted earlier on Instagram about snow in her garden. Hence the name of this week’s episode, in which we manage to channel quite a bit of spring despite snow.
For those who are wondering, here are some answers.
Thanks to my south-facing driveway, the sun melted all the snow off the pavement by mid-afternoon, so I didn’t have to shovel any of it. This doesn’t always happen, but I think the pavement had absorbed enough heat earlier in the month so that when the sun hit it, the snow couldn’t handle it. Take that, snow!
We use a Trello board to keep track of our ideas for show topics and all the quotes we use, which we discover throughout the week. We can whip up an episode faster than a seed can sprout. How do we decide on our topics? We think of most of them ourselves, but occasionally our listeners give us some ideas or make special requests. Would you like to suggest a topic or two or ten? Take this survey!
Now, let’s talk details about this week’s episode! (Early listen link right there!)
Dee suggested our flower topic after getting an email from John Scheepers' Kitchen Garden Seeds with a List of Fragrant Flowers from Seed. We are growing several of the flowers they mention.
(Side note… I mentioned four-o’clock’s growing in the wintertime. Doh. They grow in the summertime, sorry to say, so no, I don’t know about some special magical winter-growing variety.)
For the vegetable topic, we discussed growing onions and alliums because it would have been too much to lump them in with kale and root crops last week. I’m growing 'Creme Brulee', an All-America Selections of shallots, this year, plus both bunching and bulbing onions. Dee is growing red and sweet onions along with some purple shallots. She doesn’t remember the varieties.
And since Dee hasn’t had much success with growing leeks in her garden and I’ve never grown them, we thought it best to send you to a University of Wisconsin article on how to grow leeks. If you’ve grown them, comment below with your best tips!
On the bookshelf, we reviewed The Backyard Homestead Guide to Growing Organic Food: A Crop-by-Crop Reference for 62 Vegetables, Fruits, Nuts, and Herbs by Tanya Denckla Cobb. (Amazon Link.) We both think it is a great reference book, especially for organic remedies for controlling pests and diseases. We both found some interesting methods listed that we hadn’t heard before!
For our dirt, we found some new information about ticks in an article about controlling ticks in deer populations and another article about how lone star ticks find their prey, meaning you or other red-blooded creatures. The more you know your enemy…
Down in our rabbit holes, I did more research about Mrs. Edward Harding, another lost lady of garden writing, and talked about reading up about the upcoming solar eclipse, which is going to be a kind of a big deal here.
Dee has been reading What We Sow by Jennifer Jewell (Amazon Link), especially the February chapter. I need to read it now too!
And now, some more links! Because! Someone might ask.
Here are links to my Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day post, and Dee’s cherry tomato post.
One of our listeners asked for information about growing microgreens. Here’s the Family Handyman article I wrote about microgreens and a blog post I wrote with tips for growing microgreens.
Dee put out several good reels on Instagram this past week, one on seed sowing and one on insect-repelling clothes. While you are over there on Instagram, make sure you are also following Matt Mattus who has some interesting posts.
One more link! We mentioned how much we both enjoyed hearing Robin Wall Kimmerer speak back in 2017. Her books are wonderful. Check out Braiding Sweetgrass (Amazon).
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For more info on Carol visit her website. Visit her blog, May Dreams Gardens.
For more info on Dee, visit her blog, Red Dirt Ramblings.
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