Friday, January 1, 2010

New Year's Garden Doings



Looking out a window here reveals slow but steady snow. Garden activities today involve being indoors. Ed brought our one butternut squash from last year up to the kitchen. It is baking in the oven now. It's a beauty at twelve inches long, and was grown in the new bed in the back. It was, however, the only squash we got from the vines there in spite of the presence of numerous squash blossoms. Ed suspects lack of pollination is the problem. He speculates that perhaps the bees preferred the adjacent acres of milkweed blossoms to our squash. Perhaps next summer will see him hand pollinating the big yellow squash blossoms with a soft brush.

One of my new year promises to myself is to reread some of my collection of gardening books. I started with The Harrowsmith Salad Garden by Turid Forsyth and Merilyn Simonds Mohr. Now is the perfect time for this book's luscious pictures of garden scenes and spectacular salads. It's a great read and even includes some nice recipes. The ingredients to make yogurt vinaigrette salad dressing are on my shopping list right now. Allof these gorgeous salads have me excited about salad greens. The Cooks Garden catalog now has my attention. I want fancy lettuces, mesclun mixes and nasturtiums. I want salads made with fresh picked greens and flowers. I guess I better step outside and cool off. It's only Jan. 1 for Pete's sake!

2 comments:

Daphne Gould said...

It is hard to not get all excited when buying seeds. I look at my catalogs and see all those plants in my garden.

Teresa said...

It is nice to plan but your right. January in upstate NY is a far away place from April and May.