Channeling Sophie's Garden

Carol's garden is in Port Hope MI, in a rural, lakeside community. She has lots of space and expertise. Laura' garden is located in Centralia WA, in a small suburban yard challenged by access to sun and space. Debbie's garden is in Deckerville MI, in a smaller rural yard, where rules are ignored.

Each of us is applying what we learned at at our mother's and grandmother's knees in space once owned by Sophie Mayer Birg Harter on Rangeline Road. Sophie immigrated to Detroit in 1908 from Heufeld, a once German (Donauschwaben) community of Hungary. Her hope lives on.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Celebrating spring sprouts

So the rain has let up for a day, but luckily the raised beds drain well. March has been unseasonably wet. The levels of rainfall are contributing to spring floods.

Seeded a few weeks ago anyway and today is a major sprouting day. Radishes and lettuce came up more than a week ago, but today we have snap peas, beets, mustards greens, chard and a peek from the early (short) carrots.  I'm always exciting to see the sprouts, watching for them, wondering if they'll actually show. It's a childish game but gives me a lift, genuine excitement, everytime. So today I am toasting the spring garden.

I've been reading Backyard Bounty (Linda Gilkeson) - a complete guide to year-round organic gardening in the Pacific Northwest. Some of things we can get away with here are counter intuitive to what I already know, but I'm going to try to stretch my space, which is limited by size and sun, to provide more. So I jumped in to planting so early.

I have been worried about the rain and potato towers, so this week Steven and I covered each tower with a heavy duty trash bag to collect the rain and then dumped it twice a day. It's working beautifully. Hopefully the rain will back off soon.
Posted by at

1 comment:

  1. CLYApril 2, 2011 at 5:41 AM

    It is always fun to look for what is coming up, we are still cold but can see pansies, daffodils, and other spring bulbs peaking out. The sunroom is rather crowded but the tomatoes and peppers are doing well.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)