A few thoughts

It is yet another of those wonderful winter days which remind many of us just why we moved to the Carolinas. Sunny and 70 degrees on January 29th! I had a short day at work so I was able to get out on the tractor this afternoon. A neighbor needed some tilling work to be done, so I took the tractor over and took care of it. And while the ground was more moist than I would have preferred, I turned under the clover that had been serving as a cover crop in the veggie garden. If I were to wait for perfect conditions to till the clover under, I might not get in done in time to plant. I have some late winter/early spring veggies to set out within the next month, so I need to get the cover crops turned under and decomposing soon.

 The winter wheat is coming along nicely, as you can see here. As this is a new crop for me, I am very excited to see it doing so well. The dogs love to eat the tasty tender tips, and I suspect the deer do as well.

The bees were very busy today. The red maples will be just beginning to bloom now, with the peak coming in mid to late February. This is one of the primary sources for bees to collect pollen in the year and they need to start building up a population now to take advantage. As long as the temps stay moderate, I will leave the bees to their own. If it were to turn cold, I might consider filling a feeder with some homemade 'nectar' for them. The photo, if you can make it out, is of some red maple buds.

Pampas grass

I just added this picture of the Pampas grass because I realized it is one of the plants in my gardens that I had never mentioned. Some folks like the stuff, some don't. My DW doesn't and I do so I put it way out at the very back border of the property as sort of a screen between the veggie garden and the house behind us. I have five clumps of it. It serves the purpose for which it is intended, and I think it's rather attractive.

Leatherleaf Mahonia (Oregon Grape Holly)

Winter Daphne

The leather leaf mahonia is blooming. I really like this plant for a shady spot. It is very prickly, so don't plant it near any walks or paths. It is evergreen with some nice looking holly-like  leafs, and it blooms when there is  very little else blooming in the gardens. As a rule, it tends to be more of an upright plant, getting no more than 6' wide and 8'-10' tall.

Winter Daphne

The winter dapne has also started to bloom. On a nice day like today, it is quite the treat to go out and sit on the bench with two of these at each end and bask in the wonderfully sweet fragrance of these shrubs. They are very finicky about how and where they are planted, but once properly situated, they are well worth the trouble. How many are so lucky as to be able to go out and enjoy the fragrance of a beauty like this, in late January?

The hellebores (lenten roses) are in full bloom now. 

If you ever consider planting nandinas, just be informed about what you are doing. These plants are considered invasive in most areas. These two are an example of some that escaped cultivation via birds. They are growing wild in my woods (along with lots of wild privet, asian honeysuckle and wild roses). I have some Firepower nandina in my landscape, but to my knowledge they don't produce seed (or at least I haven't seen any in the 10+ years I've grown them).

The first of the winter sown seeds to germinate. I think these are the balloon flowers. I'll just close them back up, add a few more holes in the lid, and leave them be until I have some time to either pot them up, or plant them out.

Baking bread

With there being so little to do outside, I got the itch to make a mess or two in the kitchen. I like chili, and I am the only one in the family who really does. So making a big pot of chili means figuring out what to do with the leftovers. I used to bag them up into individual serving sizes and freeze them. But since I've gotten the canning bug, I thought I'd give that a shot. As it turns out, one batch of my chili will make seven pints (just what my canner will hold in one batch). I processed them for 75 minutes at 10 pounds and they all sealed up just fine.
 I followed that up with making a loaf of bread from freshly milled hard wheat flour. I went down to the  local 'organic' store and bought what I eye balled to be around 4 to 5 cups of wheat berries. I have a grain grinding attachment for my Kitchenette mixer and I milled the berries at the finest setting it has. I followed a recipe I found on MotherEarthNews website, by making a soaker and a sponge the night before. I let them sit, covered, overnight. The sponge had expanded by maybe 25%. After mixing the soaker and the sponge together I kneaded it for a few minutes and then left it to rise for 45 minutes. I punched it down, and formed it into a loaf shape and coated with oil. I left it to rise again for 45 minutes, then put it into an oven at 425 degrees for around 40 minutes. It came out quite well. As with everything I make with my homegrown honey, it had the taste of the buckwheat I grow for the bees. I can comfortably say my bread tastes like no one else's due to this one key ingredient.

Not exactly the frozen tundra!

 It was a beautiful weekend here in the Carolinas. We had highs above 70 with a nice gentle wind. I got the weekend started on Friday by washing my truck. I do this once a year, wether it needs it or not :D. Then I got up early Saturday and started another of my least favorite things to do, cut back the ornamental grasses in the gardens. I have six very large clumps of variegated grass, three at the end of the driveway by the street, and three in the circle in the drive up near the house. If you've looked through the pictures on the blog, I'm sure they are in several backgrounds. They get about 6' tall and about as wide. I also have some smaller grasses in the street bed, one is a zebra grass and the other I honesty don't recall.  I use my electric hedge trimmers to cut them. It does a pretty good job, even on the tougher stalks. The problem being that the end of the driveway is some 225' from the house, so I have to string out three extension cords to get there. I park my truck next to the grasses and pile it all in the bed and take them around back to the compost bins. There I mix them with some barn cleanings and wait.

The camelia japonica, Mr Sam, is blooming on the south side of the house. The blooms have a very tactile sense about them. They are so very smooth and perfect, and so very soft to the touch.  Last year it bloomed at this same time, maybe even earlier as I recall, and I had thought it was fooled by a warm spell. I am starting to think this is it's destined time to bloom. 

The lenten roses are full of buds. They should be opening any day now.

Here you see my small attempts at what is termed 'winter sowing'. I take perrenial seeds and pot them up in these mini greenhouses (I've poked holes in the tops and bottoms of the containers) and set them outdoors. This way they are exposed to the elements and those that require winter chilling, will get it. They will sprout whenever they are ready. I've had some sprout very early in the process, and some not until late March. I will them transplant the seedlings either into individual pots or plant them straigtht out into the gardens. This year I have some echinacea, some oriental lilly, and two varieties of balloon flowers sowed. All of the seeds were harvested from my garden this fall.

As you can see, here in Carolina, the jounquils come up in early winter. They have done this every year we have been here with no ill effects on the flowers. You should plant these near where you will pass by and enjoy their wonderful fragrance. I have these planted below some Burkwood Viburnums which bloom slightly earlier than the jonquils, so I get several weeks of fragrance in the spring as I come in from the driveway.

Here are the two varieties of violas I am growing this winter. I like them better than their more heralded cousins the pansy. Violas are far more easy to care for and more hardy too.

On Sunday I got the garden ready for planting of the snap peas next weekend. I put up a couple stakes and strung some old deer netting between them. The peas I sowed indoors last week have sprouted, and will be ready to go in the ground next weekend. I also decided to try the Alaska pea again this year. I soaked those seeds overnight Friday and sowed them on Saturday, again indoors. I also potted up some more cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli and spinach seedlings Saturday. One more sowing should do the trick for this spring.
 It will soon be time to get very busy with the seed starting. I started some datura seeds I collected from the garden this year. They come from a hybrid, so there is no telling what I'll get. One of the fun things about gardening, and growing from seed, is the not knowing.

Peas

Believe it or not, it is time to start the peas. Last year I tried direct sowing the peas in late January. I had limited success with this. It took forever for the seeds to germinate, and the germination rate was less than what I had hoped for. So this year, I am starting the peas indoors under lights and will transplant them into the garden. I want them to grow for a couple weeks indoors and then harden them off for a week before I put them out in late January. I did the Super Sugar Snap Peas this weekend, and I'll do the Early Frosty next week.  The Super Sugar Snaps are the type that you eat the pod and all, and they are very, very tasty.  So much so that it is hard to get them from the garden to the kitchen without eating them! The Early Frosty are old fashioned english peas which must be shucked from the pods to be eaten. They are also very tasty right out in the garden.
 I am still debating as to wether I will give Alaska peas another try this year. Last year, they did not taste good enough to warrant the effort to grow them. This is a variety that is recommended by both the NC State and Clemson Ag sites, so I may be willing to give them a second chance. My problem is that I have limited space for them in my garden plan this year. On the other hand, I have the seeds so I don't have to buy more. I am leaning towards not growing them, but we shall see.
 I also started another batch of cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage seeds. And added in some spinach as well.  And I found an old package of granex onion seeds and sowed them in a shallow container. I keep those plastic containers that potato salad and cole slaw come in at the grocery store, clean them out, and poke some drainage holes in them. They make nice little greenhouses to sow seeds. The onions have started to sprout, about a week after sowing. After they grow for a few weeks, I'll prick them out into individual 3"x3" cell packs and grow them on for transplanting into the garden in late February. I've yet to have an onion get much bigger than a golf ball in the garden, but then I haven't been faithful in weeding the onion beds and everything I read, onions do not compete with weeds well. So I am going to put forth a little more effort in weeding and see what I can do .