Stinkbug Winter

What is the longest crocus season I have seen since I've been looking at such things. Nothing to complain about, really, as it has made the ubiquitous late winter flower worth looking for. Mine have been quite spotty, an appearance here, a show of it there.

One other thing to note about this winter, maybe you've experienced it: an abundance of stinkbugs -inside. First it was in a motel room in Naperville, Illinois. They kept popping up to the delight or horror of the cat. Later, at a meeting in Westbury, Long Island, I spotted one crawling on the milk carton provided with our coffee. Just this last Saturday, in a friend's spotless home, northeast of Peekskill, New York, one was hightailing it across the hardwood floor.

I have not researched this. Have you seen an abundance of indoor stinkbugs this winter?

Update: Ok, this probably answers it, now that I've googled it. Please, spare yourself the comments. I had no idea that National Geographic had the kind of reader that would equate a stinkbug in winter with the President, Global Warming, and Nazis. Criminy.

A Little Color

After an inordinate amount of time searching for OMRI listed sources of Potassium for the beach farm, and not purchasing any, I needed to leave the apartment. I had seen the pale blue crocus in bloom on the warm day before the cold day, but had no time to stop and admire them, electronically. Today, however, I caught these larger, more robust flowers recently emerged from the leafy mat, and just before shadow took the corner.

Stepping into the side yard, the path stones squished under my weight, a season's worth of frost heave visible and then, the acrid bouquet of a season's worth of feline manure. I considered, briefly, picking up the winter's twigs, leaves, and trash deposits, but moved on to my intentions, sure enough there would be another 45 degree day for that.

Where The Wild Things Are

They're in my gut and in my back, jumping around, banging their heads, slamming into walls.

Regular readers and friends, you may have noticed that there hasn't been any posts this October about my garlic farming. You may remember that by early October last year I was already on my plot upstate tending to the business of a small garlic farm and posting. Not this year, and there is a good reason: I have yet to secure a place to grow my crop.

Above you see my Crocus sativus, Saffron crocus, that should have been in the ground early this month. They are now sprouting in storage. It makes me sad, but also frustrated and deeply stressed. I have over 25 hundred dollars worth of the best seed garlic money can buy sitting in my studio. Over the last two months I would have been preparing, measuring, sourcing, labeling, and otherwise getting ready for the rush of planting had things gone as expected.

But they haven't and I've been sitting on my hands. I resist the temptation to tell the story because it simply isn't the time for that. All I can say is that I've been ready to get this done and yet there has been foot dragging, and now, at the last minute, a lease was presented with wording that I cannot agree to.

The stress of not working when I know I could and should wears me down. If the organization does not communicate with me an effective solution to our problem over the coming days, I will either need to find tilled land somewhere within driving distance to plant or Hudson Clove will clove no more.

If it comes to that, I will have 150 pounds of a wide variety of seed garlic for sale at my cost.

Just Wild About...

Saffron. 

Hudson Clove, in the spirit of beautiful experiments, is planting Crocus sativus, Saffron crocus, this fall. If all goes well, we will be the proprietor of limited amount of organic, local, sustainable, hand-cut, air-dried, labor-loving saffron. You may want to pick some up, next autumn, and may your risotto never be the same.

Start Dancing

The broccoli and leek starts are dancing in the warmer than expected weather.

The snap peas are up in the cut bond paper tubes. The roots come way out the bottoms.

Alright, just one, amongst the black mesh that keeps the cats from doing their business.

It's hard for me not to want to stop right here.

Well Deserved

It's a lot of crocus photos this year, but they're well deserved after a colder and snowier than usual winter. But what's this? A now warmer than usual last few days of calendar winter! Spring comes tomorrow, but it will seem like late May, won't it.

That will probably spell the end of the crocus season and beginning of the daffodils.

Well I will send out these crocus to our friends Adrienne and Josh who had their baby boy sometime yesterday. Asa was supposed to come on March 8th, my 40th birthday incidentally, but he was waiting to be coaxed, maybe waiting for warmer weather! Congratulations friends, no finer people to bring new life to our world.

Crocus, Color, and Catalogues

These are the Crocus tommasinianus I posted about the other day. More have come up since then, and they look better in numbers. They are very delicate, with short leaves.

The purple is more blue than red, and certainly not as pale as those in the photo at Scheepers. But, I see now that the catalog description says "pale lilac to deep reddish-purple." As an artist, I can fully attest to the different ways people will describe the same colors. If a photo is only one variation of a set of possible colors, and those other colors are described with words (or photoshop!), then one cannot be too particular, knowing the range of possible colors those descriptions could suggest. Letting it go now.

This is the C. tomassinianus 'Lilac Beauty'. I think the photo in the catalog better describes these, although they were photographed on a cloudy day or in the shade and not color-corrected, or possibly blue tinted in image processing for effect. I can forgive this because I can easily see through it, to the flower I have, simply with a blue cast in the whites and over the orange in their photo.

I bought 25 corms, but only a few of these have come up. So that may be the bigger disappointment with these. I will be moving them, anyhow, to a new location as we begin to redesign this area due to the demise of the yew tree that was here just a month ago. That's what I am really excited about - a new opportunity brought on by a heavy snowfall. No more vegetables, that was already decided. Just herbs, flowering plants, and a small patio.

March of the Crocus

The best and worst thing about crocus is their ephemeral nature. But I don't mind their two week performance, or even their quick-wilt on those too-warm days. It's the corms! Because they are small and close to the surface, the squirrels get to them and with every plant I move in spring or fall, I take a few corms. Chopped up or left on the surface, they don't have much chance to return. So, for the many that I have planted over the years, what comes up year over year are less and less crocus.

These I planted in the side yard last November. I bought C. Tommasinianus, the anti-squirrel crocus, from Scheepers. They don't look all that much like the photo in their catalog. They also don't look much like the other C. T., 'Lilac Beauty,' that I bought from them last fall. I planted both in the side yard, and some in the front- but so far not seeing the qualities I saw in the catalog photos.

The unamed stalwarts, or what's left of them, from my first spring bulb planting, fall 2004.

These too.

And this one. Very few of these left, maybe just three.

Come Again

I took this nice weather morning to plant these bulbs that I received, wow, over a month ago. All from Scheepers. In the back, Crocus tommasinanius and Crocus T. 'Lilac Beauty'. Twenty five for $4.75, I think that's a great price for the small pleasures of late winter. Scheepers' website mentions that squirrels don't eat these. Of course, I've had more trouble with my own shovel destroying the crocus, but I think I found evidence of the anti-squirrel qualities of these. I planted them in soil around the stepping stones in the side yard. The next day I went out and saw that the soil was spread all over the stones and what did I see, but one crocus bulb sitting on top, un-gnawed. I think sir squirrel moved on to other more tempting treats.

The front two are species lilies, 'Citronella' and 'Davidii', 5 bulbs each for $9.75 and honestly, I wish I could have given two of each away -no room! The white bulbs on the left are onion, Allium atropurpureum. I really don't like those giant globe allium, so I go for the varieties that have more open habits or the humble umbel forms.

I was planting the bulbs, moving iris and other perennials for the side yard flower garden, come vegetable garden, come again flower garden. Since that corner is kind of messy with the cat feeding and bottle depositing and otherwise garbage-y quality, not to mention the telephone poles that come and go, I put some max sunflowers in the corner to go with the mess. Today, when I am doing this other work, a neighbor says hello and then says 'finally cutting back those flowers, eh.' To which I respond, 'do you not like them?' And so on from there...

I will never cut down a flower in bloom. Just won't, unless, of course, it's for the vase. I certainly wasn't doing what my friendly neighbor was suggesting, and certainly not in November when every day with blooms is an anchorage to warm and temperate times. But I get it, neighbors want plants to stay within their frames- behind the fence, WHAP!! cracks the whip. So I bend, cranking back the poor stems of Helianthus maximilianii with a twine contraption, forcing them into the shade of the Yew tree they so desperately reach from to catch the last bits of low sun, their penchant tropism. Oh ye heliotrope, bend not to your need and will, but to the wants of your animal neighbors! Such as it is, such as it is.

I Really Should Be Working

broccoli, tomatoes, basil

When did any day become solely about mundane gardening and posting?

Today I took out the watering can. That's it then, the official beginning. A new neighbor who saw me about asked if I was planning the garden. Planning?, I questioned smugly, I've already started. Peas right there, they survived the freeze last night and a ground assault by squirrels! Oh, who do I think I am?

I planted new pea seeds into the planters today since I learned they can be grown on top of one another. Also, squirrels! So on goes the mesh.

I planted spinach seeds in the spinach planter where some spinach has over-wintered.

The broccoli that I over-wintered is starting to get stout-stemmed.

And should I want to destroy something this year, it'd be this Yew tree that puts shade on the vegetable garden. The veggies need more sun, particularly in March and September. I secretly hoped the snow would weigh this guy down to his demise.

Compromise? Landlord, please take those dead trees we call telephone poles out of the front yard and I can put the veggies there, grow enough for the neighbors to share. Then the Yew will be a welcome shade giver to an area re-designated for perennials!


Sorry, webiworld, crocus on the march!

!!Crocus Explosion!!

It just wouldn't be garden blog right if I didn't put my crocus blooming on the web. Its the crocus photos at winter's end that seem like photos of your friends' children at Christmas. I love garden photos, but everyone's dishing these. Here they are: