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Tuesday, April 14, 2015

I "Heart" Chives, True Confessions, Spring!

Notice vole holes top left and bottom right.
The first things to turn green that I can actually eat are my chive plants.  They are also, it appears, not on the vole menu.  I am always so excited to see the first little green shoots poking out of the brown clumps!

Since my explanation post, I've been rather inundated with all kinds of comments and emails.  I can imagine friends and family spending anxious hours Googling "Interventions".  Well, don't get your tighty-whiteys in a knot.  I may be a wing nut, but there you have it.  I am too old to change - and I wouldn't anyway. 

I have always been a, "If I talk the talk, I should walk the walk" kind of person.  That, and I am a learning addict.  There, I've said it.  I will try almost anything (except elephants....)  If I was a cat, I would have been long dead.  I am as curious as they get - in every aspect of that word - and I am a hands-on learner.  That being said, this latest addition to Sweezie's Living Library (aka Dexter) is another example of taking what is offered and seeing how I do.  I eat beef.  Ergo, it would make sense that I would raise beef.  If I can.  I am fully aware of most of my limitations.  I will not risk injury or make my life a living hell just to see if I can do something.  I firmly reserve the right to change my mind.  I also eat pork, but would not raise a pig.  Because you really have to raise two and I don't have the room or the fencing for pigs.  Dexter was given to me and I will do my best to raise him well.  If I can't, well then, I will make sure he goes to someone who will do as good a job as I would.

I hope that makes everyone feel better...

This plant made me feel better
all winter.
I've been doing a little Kamikaze clean-up - a fast rake here, a fast rake there.  I went out and raked up the chicken yard and, by the time I got back with the giant trug, the little buggers had completely undone my neat pile.  Lesson learned - have trug at the ready.

This year I have to completely redo my herb garden.  The edging boards are rotting, the fencing has been compromised by rabbits, and the voles have found it.  I am going to take the whole thing apart, temporarily move my perennials, replace or replenish the soil and enlarge it.  I am going to put up a sturdier fence this go-around, so that I can enjoy my parsley before the rabbits chew it to the ground.  I am also thinking of adding onto it and making a medicinal herb garden as well.  I might just get to sketching it out this year, but I like the idea of having useful herbs at hand.

Our forecast still calls for very chilly nights (drat), so there will be no planting yet.  I just received my fingerling seed potatoes (from California - what do they know of our non-spring??), so I need to get the potato bags out and set up.  Given the restraints of my garden and the fact that I can get 50# of very serviceable potatoes from a local farm for $9, I am only planting specialty types.  I left my cold frame open for the rain (free water) and will plant lettuce in it this weekend.  I need something green!

12 comments:

Mama Pea said...

Oh my. Oh gosh. Oh dear. I sure hope you didn't take my comment on your last post (re Dexter) as being upset with you or disapproving of your decision to raise your own hamburger. (I was trying to be funny. Another fail. Sigh.) One of the things that I most admire about you is that you DO "walk the walk" and are ever-so-willing to give just about anything a try. (Excluding taking in retirement aged elephants.) It's an admirable trait of which I wish I had a bigger dose.

P.S. My chives are up, too. Yippee!

Susan said...

Mama Pea - Oh, heavens, no! I was snickering all day about the elephant. And, actually, I would be hard-pressed to NOT take in a retirement-aged elephant. Poor thing.) Take my word for it - you are just perfect as you are! :)

Sue said...

ANother chive fiend----so glad to know that! I was just admiring the first shoots of mine popping up and wondering if 1/4" is too short to cut????? LOL! I can taste them on a tater with too much butter!!! I think chives are one of the sole reasons I drag through winter. I know those little shoots mean we survived for a reason.

I have to go back on posts----I must have missed one. You're raising a beef? Wonderful!! I have no doubt that will be the most SPOILED cow on the planet.
Have a good week

Candy C. said...

A medicinal herb garden sounds like it would be very useful. The only medicinal I have is a perennial wormwood and I'm afraid to use it! LOL!! Although, they have made Absinthe legal again...

Sandy Livesay said...

Susan,

Your chives look really nice and healthy. Something to start using now that spring is starting to show it's self in your area.

I have to ask, what type of flowers are those purple flowers? They're gorgeous.....
And refreshing :-)

Expanding your herb garden to grow medicinal herbs is fantastic news. Girl, I so hear you with putting up something to prevent the voles and rabbits from coming inside your garden. We are doing the same thing. Granted we've installed feedlot panels with t-posts around the garden, now we have to put very small mess type wire around the base of the feedlot panels to prevent little critters from getting inside. Last year, the rabbits would squeeze through the 2 inch wide squares on the fencing. This year hopefully no critter will make it in the garden.

Enjoy Dexter :-)

MrsDuncanMahogany said...

Chives AND rhubarb....not together obviously but I can see both growing like weeds in my little garden. And that's really exciting!!! Stewed rhubarb is the best!

Susan said...

Sue - LOL! Is there such a thing as too much butter??

Susan said...

Candy - If Absinthe was good enough for Henri Toulouse Lautrec, then it's good enough for me!

Susan said...

Sandy - I wish I knew what kind of flowers they are. I picked them up at the grocery store on a particularly dark late summer day. They have been blooming their little hearts out all winter long! Anyone know what kind of flower they are?

Susan said...

Mrs DM - Rhubarb is my spring tonic. I have been anxiously watching mine to make sure that it didn't perish over this particularly gruesome winter. All seems well...

Janice Grinyer said...

Bud check - thats how us gardeners can tell we are really into it LOL Butt in the air, both palms on the ground, examining the (insert plantname here) for the smallest hint of a bud..."did it survive the winter??????" lol

xox

Janice Grinyer said...

If you plant enough - I dry mine in the oven overnight on "warm" setting - CHIVES ALL YEAR ROUND...xox