Tag Archive | gardening

CHIVES! (A blog post)

Mar22

One of the first things I planted here – at House Thorn – were chives.

I got them off a freecycle or plantcycle (same idea), back in the days when those lists were doing well here in Ithaca.

(The concept of either is that you post “I have this thing I don’t need anymore” or “I have this thing I need, does anyone have it?”  I’ve used it to get: a scythe, cat litter buckets (Our cat litter comes in sort of cartons and I wanted to try cat litter bucket planters), air mattresses, a broken breadmaker… We’ve gotten rid of a safe, a burn barrel, a turtle sandbox…)

I also went and got the earliest-blooming crocuses that were available.

Of course, since we moved into the house in mid-September, we discovered the next Spring that the people who had owned the house before us had been of a similar mind – there are spring blooming bulbs all over this place, so it’s a riot of color from the first thaw through the end of day-lily season.

But CHIVES.

I hate March, I’m afraid.  Really dislike the month. (T was explaining why to a friend and he summarized it as “the color.”)  It’s grey and muddy! And it’s a tease; you want to plant but you can’t.

The last freeze date in our area is mid-May, just for reference.

But CHIVES.  Chives are food.  They are fresh and they really taste good only fresh. And when the snow is just starting to melt, when it’s just thinking about melting, then you have chives.

This little bit of green pops up in your garden (I have an “invasives” bed I’ve mentioned before, where I let various chives and mints duke it out. I tried oregano once and I ended up with hybridized mint-regano.) and it’s like All Is Not Lost.  Things Will Grow Again. Here, have some Food.

It’s amazing. Alliums are a gift and we should cherish them forever.

🧅

Want more?

🧅

Other Chive Posts:

Gardening! March 23, 2012

Life in the Country, Tuesday edition (Actually Monday edition, just really late). March 21, 2012

On Chives  April 9, 2014

Spring! Chives – May 16, 2013

How Does My Garden Grow…

Jun12

It’s playing in the dirt time of year, and I’ve been doing a lot of it.

Well, not as much as SOME years, but a decent amount.

A couple few weeks ago was the local high school’s annual plant sale, where most of the local nurseries show up to sell you plants (go fig, what with it being a plant sale and all 😉

That was – well, not the start, but the lion’s share of our plant buying.

We have a bunch of brassicas, some peppers (poblano, mostly), an eggplant, a couple tomatoes, and some sweet potatoes.  Also two kinds of summer squash and four cucumber plants.

The two beds on the south end of our garden were already full — one is a now-permanent perennial bed with asparagus and strawberries, and the other is growing garlic we planted last year. It’s nice to have stuff up and ready to eat while everything else is just barely thinking about being tall enough for the chipmunks to eat.

(The damn pests pulled up my ONE habanada plant!  Killed it!  Again!) Continue reading →

My Weekend, with Beets

Oct16

Hello!

I haven’t done one of these in a while, but let’s see.

I have two major non-writing, non-work things going on in my life right now: Getting the yard ready for autumn/winter, and Finishing the $*( attic.

This weekend was mostly yard.  We dug up potatoes and beets (yes, we’re pretty sure that’s a beet).  We chopped down the horseradish and walking onions so that we can dig up the horseradish soon. (“this smells like an angry Polish soup.”)

We planted garlic!  (And hyacinths…)  We cleared out one of the back beds of weeds and planted a cover crop of oats (an experiment).  We harvested mustardseed and eggplants and peppers.
(and that beet….)

We brought the bay tree and lavender inside, the lime tree having already come inside.  We dumped some pots and cleaned them out for next year.  We trimmed back the asparagus.

(The Kale, parsley, and sage will be fine for at least another month).

We put the grill in the garage.  We bought a lawnmower.

(We bought a lawnmower!)

(WE BOUGHT A LAWNMOWER.)

At about that point, T. asked how tired I was, and I could manage about “uh-hunh.”

But now I’ve bought more garlic, I’ve bought some Liquid Nails and some spray foam, and today:  BACK TO THE ATTIC.

I mean, once I get out of work.

But hey, we got some garlic planted!!  We’ve never managed that quite on time before!

 

Patreon: Onions, a fishy repost, and Taco Salad!

Jun28

🥗
So we tried a thing last night and it actually turned out well!

We had ground beef to eat and it was way too hot for eating spaghetti or hamburgers or anything too hot.
Available for all “Recipe Box” patrons!

Originally posted June 16, 2011.
🐟
The sushi bar had a mermaid in its fish tank.

I was new in town, having just recently parlayed my experience with the Agency into a cushy consulting gig and my hazard pay into a nice little house…

Read on!

These are walking onions. They make bulbs on the top of their stalks, which make another stalk with another bulb, which makes… you guessed it, another stalk with another bulb!!

Take a Peek!

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(S is for) Seeds in the Ground!

Apr26

Today I planted some Evergreen Bunching Onions – in the other half of the row in which I planted carrots yesterday. I also planted a few feet of Rossa Lunga di Firenze seeds. Both are “spring” or “green onion” or “Scallion” varieties, depending on how you ask – something eaten while the bulb is the size of a fingertip, the greens often used as garnish.

All of these seeds are old, although I’ve kept them all in the freezer, so I overplanted heavily. I mean, like carrots, you can eat the thinnings, too. And if they only sprout sporadically, I have enough seeds to fill in the gaps.

Then I hauled a little more dirt to the bed at the opposite corner of the garden (There are two rows of four 4×6 beds; the two right-hand beds on each side are 12″ deep and the others are 6″ deep), where I have a netting trellis set up. There I planted a row of peas: half Wando and half Freezonian (yes, really.)

Again, old seeds – two years ago, I think – this time I tried something different. I planted them at 2x the suggested distance. In two weeks, I can go in and plant half of the “gap” spaces, and in two weeks after that, the other “gap” spaces. That way, the trellis won’t be lopsided 🙂

…I really like planting things. I’m not so good at remembering to weed and such.

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(P is for) Planted! First things in the garden

Apr25

3 feet of carrots – the first of many in succession planting – half Red-cored Chantenay, half Short n’ Sweet. They’ll be ready at the end of June/beginning of July!

I’ve got a 4’x6′ bed, and plan to plant a half-row every two weeks.

If I plant the rows 6″ apart, that’s 16 half-rows. /Does the math/ I’d be planting until November… that won’t work (First frost is around October 15th here).

Okay, maybe I want to make some of those half-rows something else. Any suggestions?

Planting more at a time seems counter-productive, but I could space things every week instead.

Do you have any favorite varieties of carrot? (Or any other root crop that takes up a small footprint?) Anything I should dedicate half a row to?)

…I have a LOT of green onion seeds still…

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