Spring Fever/ by Shelley Lance, Blog Editor
These balmy January days- even a little sunshine!- have turned my thoughts to the Spring garden. For the first time in quite a while, the backyard garden beckoned, and I took a leisurely stroll down the paths. My two witch hazels are blooming, my hellebores have fat flower buds, and the green shoots of various bulbs are poking their heads through the soil. Less delightfully, the weeds are in full frolic, so I managed to spend a few hours weeding. When you’re kneeling on the ground weeding, you observes the details of your garden- which is how I discovered that my rhubarb is pushing up new growth!
All of which stimulated me to pull out the 2010 seed catalogs and start my list. Last Thursday’s New York Times has a useful article, “Packet Full of Miracles,” featuring garden experts’ favorite seed picks and favorite seed companies. The gardeners even tell which crops they vow never to plant again! Watermelon came up twice in this regard: “Can we just say watermelons are a constant heartbreak?” On the subject of new plants to try, one gardener mentioned that she’s considering red-leafed bok choy as a way to put more color in her vegetable garden, and though she didn’t mention a specific variety, I found a purple pakchoi in John Scheepers’ catalog described as a “gorgeous, uniquely colored Japanese import.” Sounds good to me; I’m ordering it. What am I not ordering from the NYT garden experts’ picks? I’m definitely staying away from Superschmeltz kohlrabi, which “grows to extraterrestrial dimensions” with “reliable reports of a 29-pound kohlrabi.” I don’t care how super sweet and crispy it is, a thirty pound kohlrabi is something I can do without! By the way, there’s a slide show accompanying the article which lets you get up close and personal with these gardeners’ favorite picks.
RSS Subscribe