Friday, February 8, 2013

We Skipped Winter and are well into Spring

Well, we seemed to have skipped winter entirely here in Florida. I no sooner got my Fall/Winter crops planted before I realized that I need to start thinking about spring planting! My bok choy, daikon radishes, collard greens, mustards, and lettuces are all doing really well, though some have already begun to bolt! Our cold season was so mild, that my tomatoes from last summer all set new fruit and I have been eating garden fresh tomatoes in my salads all winter long. I can’t complain about the bountiful winter harvests, but I know it also means that this summer will be an unbearable mosquito (and other garden pests) season.

I’ve been canning up a storm here because our Meyer Lemon tree just exploded with fruit this year. Our little tree probably had over 100 softball sized lemons on it! We had to bungee cord it together to keep it from breaking under the weight of all that fruit. I canned dozens of half pints of delicious Meyer lemon marmalade, and also made some absolutely decadent lemon curd. It tastes like candied sunshine!

I’ve also been working furiously on a spreadsheet of my seed catalog and a method of organizing them. I think I am finally on to a winning method. I’ll write more about that soon.

And lastly, I am reading a great book about the grassroots food movement called, Reclaiming Our Food by Tanya Denckla Cobb. I heard about this book on Twitter and am so glad that I picked it up. It is so inspirational! If you have ever wondered how you could get involved in community-based or local food, this is the book for you. Seriously, pick it up for no other reason that to get inspired about your own neighborhood.

I’ll be updating again soon as I get my seedlings started. I have two small greenhouses I will be constructing this week to get the seeds started. I am so looking forward to this year in the garden, and I hope you are too.

No comments:

Post a Comment