Sunday Morning Review

Awoke to a yard covered with snow this morning. "Why does it have to do that?" asked Daughter. It's light and fluffy and won't stay, but still. I was raking pine cones yesterday and the kids set up a baseball diamond in the yard. Now everything's buried, and that sucks.

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On pine cones: I have thousands of them in my yard this spring. We must have had good conditions for pine trees last year following by a windy winter. Wonder what makes for better-than-average pine cone production? Whatever it was, it also made for some serious spring raking.

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The Vermont Fish and Wildlife office is reminding everyone that it's time to bring in bird feeders because the bears are waking up hungry, and they love those seeds. I haven't seen any bears in our yard, but I do have neighbors with a few bent and twisted feeder poles.

I didn't feed the birds much this year because my dogs also love those seeds -- the ones the birds thrown on the ground. The dogs subsequently develop some supremely offensive gas. I'm going to clear a bird-feeding spot outside the dog's zapper fence next winter because I like to host cardinals in particular in the winter.

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My seeds in the greenhouse froze the other night, so as my friend Rosemarie says, "I guess that experiment's over." I brought the seeds inside.

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I wanted to blog about the White House planting the First Garden, but even People Magazine picked up that story, so I'll pass. But I do have a couple notes on the subject...

The Obamas have to buy their own groceries, so of course they should have a garden. I appreciate that they're making it big enough that they can donate extras to a local food shelf.

On "60 Minutes" last weekend, Alice Waters, queen of sustainability and chic Berkeley dining, said that she has been working on getting a garden at the White House for, like, the past 10 years. I wonder how much influence she had in the project. No doubt that she couldn't get her message heard during the past 8 years...

Spring Workshops in Williston

I went to a gardening workshop at the Old Brick Church in Williston village last night. It was hosted by a gardening group that wants to teach gardening neophytes how to plant seeds -- in the spirit of spreading the green.

I was familiar with most of the material covered, but I did learn a few things:


**Eggplant is difficult to grow in Vermont. It likes warmer weather than we can provide. It's also prone to pests, so if you're going to give it a go, potting it is the recommended approach. The soil in a pot will stay warmer too. I think eggplant might like living in my greenhouse for an extended period. On the other hand, nobody in my family really likes eggplant, so why bother? If I carry my seeds through to the end, I'm going to needs some creative recipes.

**The general consensus among the workshop leaders is that my seeds are unlikely to germinate in my half warm/half cold greenhouse. So today, I'm leaning toward an investment in heating mats.

**Don't till a garden -- it breaks down the soil structure. This discussion rears its head every spring when my husband wants to till the spring weeds under, and I want to pull them. My argument is that if you till a weed under, it has the potential of sprouting again. His argument is that I have a lot of weeds to pull. So this year, no deep tilling. I have a small electric hand tiller that I'll use to work up the top couple of inches, but that's it.

**Peppers like to be warm while sprouting then a little cooler for awhile before going into the ground. Curious.

**Self-watering pots are the pot of choice for patio gardening. They don't dry out like a traditional clay pot, so the plant isn't subject to the stress of being wet then dry over and over.

One of the impressive things about the workshop is that the organizers brought peat pots and cowpots, soil, and seeds for everyone to take a few planted seeds home with them. I didn't take anything because I already have seeds in progress. But I thought that was a generous offer.

Next month's workshop will tackle potatoes, broccoli, and kale. I plan to attend because my broccoli always bolts quickly and I'd like to find out why, and I'd like to try some potatoes for the first time this year.

Happy day before the first official day of spring!