My garden is a work in progress, always growing and changing within itself.
My gardens include many herbal beds, raised vegetable beds, raised "citrus heights" citrus tree bed, berry beds, fruit trees, grape arbor, rose beds and many perennial flower beds with annuals too. My greenhouse is still in the transformation stage, as well as some planting areas. Enjoy your journey through my gardens, I do!
Did I mention that this picture was taken in 2011??? or was it December 31 at 9pm???
Yes, your thinking is correct. These peppers were just picked from the vine in my raised bed full of peppers at the New Year! We have had more than our share of cold weather this winter. Lots of nights down in the 20's. Some winters we have no actual freeze nights! I remember one year about (maybe 15 yrs ago) when we had such a bad freeze (18 degrees) that all my citrus fruit on my two lemon trees and one grapefruit tree froze and then spoiled. That was a very sad year indeed!
Okay back to peppers. In the middle of this January we picked a few more nice red peppers too and they were great!
You can see I gutted the medium hot long pepper that looks like an Anaheim pepper, yet this one is one of those whose name I cannot remember without going out and reading the tag. I believe it is hotter than Anaheims though.
Here is the next step: Ha! Chopped!
Now to make something wonderful from these beautiful peppers!
This is the vegetable side of a fantastic pasta! As you can see, it includes leeks, carrots, green garlic, broccoli, cauliflower, peppers of course, a tiny bit of olive oil and some tomato paste, I see I put in fresh rosemary and probably celery seed, freshly dried oregano and basil from the garden. I can almost smell it cooking! And to top it off, I served it with homemade sourdough whole wheat seed bread.
This is my own recipe that I have improved over time and I can tell you that it is great! So we brought in the NEW YEAR with wonderful fresh and healthy homemade food, including vegetables and herbs from the garden! Happy New Year to all of you!
December in the garden includes onions, leeks, garlic, swiss chard (of course), my new bed of potatoes and my full long bed of sweet and chili peppers. I never got broccoli or other brassicas planted in fall (of course I was out of the country much of the time).
Sometime near the end of November I went out with a huge basket and harvested all the basil late at night before we were to get a hard freeze. I also harvest lots of my beautiful red peppers that cold dark night. Fresh pesto in winter is very special. We had a lot of pesto/pepper pasta dinners around that time.
The most amazing thing is that it is December 30th and I have plants full of peppers. Unbelievable, especially because we had a streak of cold weather that we don't see very often in Sacramento California. We also have had quite a lot of rain in the last two months. Of course the rain (and snow in the mountains) is really really good since we just came out of a couple dry years.
Very soon now, it will be time to set up my seed trays and start seed for early spring planting. The solar panels on the greenhouse will generate the energy to run the heat pad and the grow lights. Now that Christmas is over, it is the time to lay out my garden plan and decide what seeds to start. My freezer has two very large jars filled with seeds waiting to be chosen this year. Living on a city lot, there are limits to the space I have available for planting. Of course I use almost every patch of ground to grow something. So, within the next couple weeks our spring seed choices will be posted.
Exclusive Video: White House Garden Survives, Thrives in Washington Winter from the Daily Flotus by Lynn Sweet, 3-26-10
Despite a harsh Washington winter -- two blizzards and several feet of snow -- the recently harvested White House garden yielded a bounty of lettuce, spinach, and a lot of turnips.
"Nobody thought that the garden would survive," said Kass.
It not only survived, it thrived, making First Lady Michelle Obama's signature project a four-season source of fresh produce.
The plants grew over the winter covered by white plastic stretched over hoops, trapping the heat of the sun by day and keeping the plants warm at night. But even Kass was not sure the "hoop houses" would work. "The fact of the matter is we didn't know."
The video shows how the hoop houses exceeded expectations. The harvest included robust looking lettuce, spinach and arugula, Kass said leeks will be ready in the spring, garlic and peas will be picked later, as will carrots, planted but not harvested.
Ground for the 1,100-square-foot garden on the west side of the South Lawn was cleared on March 20, 2009 and first planted in April, with a "perfect" southern exposure.
"The planting of this garden was one of the first things I wanted to do as First Lady here at the White House," Mrs. Obama said at an earlier harvest on June 17. At the opening of a Farmers Market on Sept. 17 in Washington, Mrs. Obama said the garden was "one of the greatest things I've done in my life, so far."
The garden was been wildly successful, growing into Mrs. Obama's anti-childhood obesity campaign.
Kass, gesturing toward stakes already in the ground, says in the video "we are going to be expanding our garden this year, at the request of the First Lady." The plan is to "build a couple more rows of beds," Kass said.
In assessing the harvest, Kass said it was "more humble" than a summer picking, "but I think we did pretty great."
(link to article: http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/26/exclusive-video-white-house-garden-survives-thrives-in-washing/)
For some reason or many reasons, ;-)
I have spent very little time in my gardens during the month of February. Was it the cold weather? Was it the rain and wind? Was it my classes? Was it my work? I am not really sure, but the urge to get out there is back! Yea!!! I am on my way outside to prune. Yes, I know it is late, but all will survive.
The vegetable and fruit gardens are doing well for this time of the year. I do have less vegetables growing than usual though. I only have lettuce, onions, leeks, garlic, red potatoes, swiss chard and maybe spinach. Oh, I think I also have some bok choy growing too. I have many starter plants in the greenhouse waiting for me to get out there and give them the freedom of the 4 feet by 4 feet raised beds to spread their roots.
The lemons and grapefruit are providing us with a nice new crop. I have not gotten out there to check on my new fruit trees planted last year. So, hopefully off to the garden in 65° weather with an update and pictures to follow!
This ad is a little demonstration of some of what I have been working on inside on the computer this last month!
