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apple_pathwaysIt's coming it's coming IT'S COMING! SPRING! ♥ (And I am RIDICULOUSLY excited about it!)
The last few days have been filled with sunshine, blue skies, and 40+ degree weather. (Those of you who live in warmer climates--OH, HUSH! This is Michigan! When it hits 50, we're bustin' out the shorts and flip flops!) (Also: it's dropping back down into the 30s tomorrow, with 4 inches of snow by 7pm. BUT NO MATTER! The sun has had its effect: spring is coming again, and I couldn't be happier!)
I took the cat outside to explore this afternoon. She'd more or less forgotten what it was like to leave the house, and spent the first ten minutes walking around the patio in a circle and meowing at me, she was just so damn excited. Hell, I was excited, too! I spent the better part of an hour poking around the flower beds, checking for signs of life. I was eager to see which plants in my perennial herb garden survived the winter cold. It appears as if the lemongrass has died all the way back to the ground, but I don't know if it'll make its way back for another couple months. Ditto on the lemon verbena. The lavenders seem to have done well, and there's green beneath the snow on the oregano, sage, and the thyme. ♥
I also noticed several spring bulbs starting to come up after this week's thaw. I know better than to get excited over these first few shoots of green that poke their heads above the ground: this is Michigan, after all, and we have at least six weeks of surprise!frosts left until the spring flowers can safely emerge from their winter slumber. But still, that flash of green, that little reminder that the earth is coming back to life, is just so rejuvenating!
I planted the paperwhite bulbs one of my students gave me for Christmas, and spent the afternoon shopping for vegetable seeds. We get to pick out this summer's plot at the community garden on March 15. Things are happening!
Behind the cut, find gratuitous pictures of spring loveliness, and a photo mosaic of some of the fruit and vegetable varieties I'll be growing this summer:
First, these are paperwhites:
The plant varieties I bought seeds for today:
The plant varieties are, from L to R starting at the top:
These are all new varieties I'm trying out, but I've heard good things about most of them. They're all (for the most part) heirloom varieties with a tried and true reputation for flavor and growing performance.
OMG I AM EXCITE! ♥
The last few days have been filled with sunshine, blue skies, and 40+ degree weather. (Those of you who live in warmer climates--OH, HUSH! This is Michigan! When it hits 50, we're bustin' out the shorts and flip flops!) (Also: it's dropping back down into the 30s tomorrow, with 4 inches of snow by 7pm. BUT NO MATTER! The sun has had its effect: spring is coming again, and I couldn't be happier!)
I took the cat outside to explore this afternoon. She'd more or less forgotten what it was like to leave the house, and spent the first ten minutes walking around the patio in a circle and meowing at me, she was just so damn excited. Hell, I was excited, too! I spent the better part of an hour poking around the flower beds, checking for signs of life. I was eager to see which plants in my perennial herb garden survived the winter cold. It appears as if the lemongrass has died all the way back to the ground, but I don't know if it'll make its way back for another couple months. Ditto on the lemon verbena. The lavenders seem to have done well, and there's green beneath the snow on the oregano, sage, and the thyme. ♥
I also noticed several spring bulbs starting to come up after this week's thaw. I know better than to get excited over these first few shoots of green that poke their heads above the ground: this is Michigan, after all, and we have at least six weeks of surprise!frosts left until the spring flowers can safely emerge from their winter slumber. But still, that flash of green, that little reminder that the earth is coming back to life, is just so rejuvenating!
I planted the paperwhite bulbs one of my students gave me for Christmas, and spent the afternoon shopping for vegetable seeds. We get to pick out this summer's plot at the community garden on March 15. Things are happening!
Behind the cut, find gratuitous pictures of spring loveliness, and a photo mosaic of some of the fruit and vegetable varieties I'll be growing this summer:
First, these are paperwhites:
The plant varieties I bought seeds for today:
The plant varieties are, from L to R starting at the top:
- Spigariello liscia greens. (Also spelled "spigarello".) An Italian 'leaf broccoli'.
- Green nutmeg melon.
- Émérite pole beans - a French filet-type bean.
- Trionfo violetto pole beans.
- Soloist cabbage - a Chinese (Napa) cabbage variety.
- Carnival squash - a semi-bush 'acorn' squash variety.
- Moon and Stars watermelon - an heirloom variety suggested to me by the lovely ladies at
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cucurbitaceae. - True chanterais melon - a French melon variety.
- Small sugar pumpkin - supposedly THE pie pumpkin.
These are all new varieties I'm trying out, but I've heard good things about most of them. They're all (for the most part) heirloom varieties with a tried and true reputation for flavor and growing performance.
OMG I AM EXCITE! ♥
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Date: 2011-02-20 11:36 pm (UTC)"Heirloom" plants are those that were cultivated during earlier periods of human history, before the advent of modern commercial farming practices, and aren't grown now as part of commercial production. There's no exact standard for what makes an "heirloom" variety: the website I ordered from uses varities grown before 1950 as a standard.
The thing is, only a handful of fruit and vegetable varieties are grown commercially. Commercial growers select crops based on certain characteristics: high yield, ability to be mechanically picked, pest and disease resistance, resistance to chemical pest- and herbicides, ability to be shipped long distances, etc. While these traits might provide the best fruits and vegetables for commercial agriculture, things like flavor, nutrition and variety are often sacrificed.
Because heirloom varities were cultivated and developed over long periods of time, they're often naturally suited to the environments in which they were grown: temperature, soils, pests, diseases, etc.
Basically, heirloom varieties are a welcome change from half-ripe, hard, flavorless supermarket produce that's grown to withstand a beating, and not necessarily to be the tastiest or most nutritious! If you have a local growers'/farmers' market near you, you could give some of these 'heirlooms' a try! ('Heirloom' is becoming very trendy; especially 'heirloom' tomatoes. Despite my hatred of all these trendy, they really are worth a taste!)