Community Garden

We interrupt this regularly scheduled program to bring you what I meant to post months ago!

.........

With gardening on the slow time of year, I'll fill in the emptiness with some other content.
Let me take you back to the fall...

One of the benefits of being a part of a community garden is getting to see the other gardens!

Our community garden is pretty enormous, I think. (I don't have much experience with them, actually.)

So one day, at the end of the season, I took a walk and decided to share some of the loveliness that I saw...

(Disclaimer: I did not get permission from my fellow gardeners before taking or posting these, so if you've stumbled upon this blog and happen to see your garden...well...uh...sorry? But it's only here because it's truly impressive!!)

Gorgeous flowers still in bloom...

...in abundance!

And then there are those with truly impressive gardens - either very large or with incredible trellises or other structures or just beautifully producing...

Some have a lovely mix of edibles and flowers...

And then there's the gardener with the outhouse toolshed. Well done, my friend - well done!

 And then there's our neighbor, just a few plots away. We watched this corn grow...and grow....and GROW!
Garden plot partner getting increasingly jealous and me getting increasingly horrified...corn shouldn't be this tall! It's not natural!
Definitely where the children of the corn come from, no doubt...

I placed my orange bucket right next to it for scale...it's insane!

So even when our plot doesn't do super well, it's fun to be part of this little community cheering each other on and getting inspired by seeing what the "veterans" are capable of.

I know return you to our regularly scheduled SPRING!!!!

First Bloom!

It's official...February 15 the first blooms of spring appeared!

It's Time!!!

It hit me yesterday, "wait...it's February! Things start coming up in February!!"

Sure enough, I get home and look who's peeking up in the tulip border?!!

It's crocus season, y'all!


To me, this means gardening season is officially open...things are growing!


Normally those first little shoots make me go "Spriiiiiiiiing!!!!!" (even though we typically have another month of winter), but it has been SO cold here that I'm definitely still in bundling-up winter mode.
Soon as one of those fabulous Maryland sunny and 60 (or occasionally 70+!) degree days comes around, then I'll be in spring mode (even though we typically still have another month of winter! Darn those teasing warm February days that this year seem to be severely lacking!)

Sometimes I Get So Excited About Gardening That...

A fabulous Christmas gift from my sister-in-law!

Freeeeeeezing

In Maryland, what most think of as winter typically doesn't start until January. And then it's still averaging lows in the 30's and highs in the 40's. We usually get a few snow events a year, which melts within a day or two...and then we get slammed with some crazy blizzards every few years.
But in general - I love our mild winters!

This year, though has been CRAZY!

We had pretty extreme freezes in November (again, not a crazy time of year for the first frost, but definitely colder than usual).

And we had 2 or 3 actual snows in December! (And by actual I mean it stuck! And accumulated!)

And then there was the week between Christmas and New Year's which started a 2 week streak of highs in the teens and twenties and lows in the single digits!

That is insane!

We may get a day or two like that, but two weeks of it?! Yowser!

Very, very curious how my plants will do :-/


Suddenly those where I've pushed the envelope of zone 7 with are probably not going to be looking so hot come spring.

Of course this is also the year I decided to put some perennials in pots on the deck...and you KNOW pots raised on a 2nd story deck with intense wind aren't staying warmer like the deeper earth below! Figures.


Many of my evergreen bushes are looking real sad.

Browned and droopier than usual (they looked worse in the thick of the freeze; these were taken recently and we've had warmer temps again - up to 65! - since then).

And I have absolutely no hope for the camellias which have already struggled in their front bed locations and we just re-planted again last year and now this :-/

Looking veeeeery Charlie Brown Christmas Tree-ish :-(

One thing I know: plants are spectacularly hardy.

But this was rough; very, very rough.

Come on, spring!

Peanut Harvest

Well hello there, strangers!

Yes, I am enjoying my 2 months without gardening (although the 60 degree weather started giving me a teeny bit of the gardening bug). Not that I don't love gardening, but it's nice to have a little bit of time to focus on other things.

But I did finally take advantage of a break in the psychotically frigid weather to finish brushing the dirt off the now-dried peanuts and roasting them!

Here's the whole bunch when I harvested them.

And the crop after roasting!

Not the largest abundance, but very decent considering only about 4 of the peanut plants actually "took" in the bed this year.


Just a side note: peanuts are a pain in the patootie to "clean"!
Aside from individually scrubbing each one with a slightly abrasive scrubby, you'll never get all the dirt off...and there was NO way I was individually scrubbing each one!

I would put them bunches at a time into a mesh bag and shake it all around so that they'd help clean the dirt off each other...I also put the scrubby in the bag to help give more abrasion too!

(And then of course the time I didn't have the opening held closed all the way so there went half the crop flinging all over the yard when I started shaking!   [sigh]   You're welcome, squirrels for whichever ones I missed in my pick-up.)

So after I do the best I can, I just give up and we know not to chew on the shells.

"Final" Winter Clean-up

Had a warm Saturday Thanksgiving weekend where I was able to do some, but definitely not all of the clean-up I wanted to do.

But I did cut down stalks, pull some weeds and cover some of the beds with leaves.

So unless next Saturday is warm (today is freezing and snowing!!), I think this might be it for the season!

Still a few little yellow flowers hanging on!

 Also got some additional spring bulbs in the ground; hoping for a full and beautiful next year!

While most things are dying or going dormant, there is one thing that decided to make a comeback in the wildflower border...

CILANTRO INFESTATION IS BACK!!!! 😱

Really hope to get that cleaned up sooner than later!

Front beds all cleaned up with pansies planted.

I moved the "grass"-looking spring bloomer (pretty sure it's some type of dianthus) to under the rose bush. Kind of using it as a ground cover since it only blooms a bit in the spring and then just sits on top of my tulip border like a giant plop of grass.

I'm also trying leaving more summer bulbs than usual in the ground (lilies and gladiolas). I pulled a few out, but most are staying!

Definitely need to get back out and dig up the lost canna that's now in its 3rd year of expanding and wow has it exploded!

Edible garden all cleared (ish) and covered in leaves.

The herbs, though, are doing beautifully!

So there we have it. Yet again. The end of a season. 

I get about 6 weeks off, then it's time to start the spring planning!!