Hi, just wanted introduce the gardener in me this group. My first career of about 20 years as as a commercial organic grower. I worked by hand, having apprenticed in the bio-intensive method with John Jeavons--some of you may know his How Grow More Vegetables. I later was his garden manager and wrote a couple of books way back when, one a history of intensive gardening and one on how to grow a complete human diet in the smallest possible area--a pretty nerdy book, there are cut-out cardboard slide rules in it. Now in NH and owning a home--about a year in it--I have converted half the front yard to what I would have to call intensive no-dig beds. The other half I have rye in now and will go into fruit of different sorts in the spring. In the back I have just finished the hardscaping what we call our Spanish garden. We did 250 miles of the Camino de Santiago this summer, and it is a space suggest the sorts of places we would have a beer and sing and in the afternoons after walking--it will have a small garden of the plants we saw while we walked. So I am back being a real gardener after a long stretch in a completely different world and really enjoying it.
Well Hello! And welcome aboard! Quite the experiences you have to share with us all. Like others, I am curious how you find zone 5 gardening, after California and the deep South. I myself grew up gardening in the Pacific Northwest (Grandpa and an absolutely phenominal paradise of intensely cultivated suburban garden that really inspired my mom to garden, and then later me too. Now I have been on the Gulf Coast 30+ years, it was a huge adjustment. But we have long growing seasons here.
I heard a podcast yesterday on GardeNerd, in which the guest lives in Nova Scotia and uses simple greenhouses and compost-heat to garden most of the year. It is amazing.
@DavidDuhon That would be nice. I don't have a message button? Hmm. Tech mysteries.
Sounds like you're returned to your first love .
@DavidDuhon However we sometimes lose weeks at the start of the grow season now. I've seen it affect locally grown corn crops here in CT.
It depends very much on the severity of the winter. And many of the folks I know do starters indoors and then move outside when it's safe.
Posted by glennlab My first flowers of this spring. Lotus and blue bells
Posted by glennlab My first flowers of this spring. Lotus and blue bells
Posted by FrostyJimSeedlings ..
Posted by FernappleIts Hellebore season now.
Posted by FernappleIts Hellebore season now.
Posted by FernappleIts Hellebore season now.
Posted by FrostyJim...don't be silly!
Posted by KateOahuI saw some pretty flowers on a walk today. I’d never seen a white Hibiscus before. And I do not know what the pink flowers are.
Posted by KateOahuI saw some pretty flowers on a walk today. I’d never seen a white Hibiscus before. And I do not know what the pink flowers are.
Posted by KateOahuI saw some pretty flowers on a walk today. I’d never seen a white Hibiscus before. And I do not know what the pink flowers are.
Posted by FrostyJimI usually drink coffee while planting seeds?
Posted by KilltheskyfairyI love all the information on the internet that makes me a better gardener…
Posted by Jaylo64Primative hydroponic system /an old shoe rack and coffee cans ! Cans above drip into the cans below !
Posted by 1patriotOne of the main reasons for last year’s ‘spike’, which the media and government agencies have avoided mentioning, is the Hunga Tonga volcano eruption two years ago.
Posted by FrostyJim...sometimes you just can't help it?
Posted by FrostyJimI got my first seed order in the mail yesterday! WOO-HOO!