Photo credit: Flickr/biofriendly

Garden Variety will be away for a few days.

The man who edges my beds and the young lady who cooks with my herbs and I will be flying to San Diego to spend the holiday with the Marine who hates vegetables and his beautiful vegetarian bride.

It was May the last time I visited San Diego, and it was like visiting another planet. The hills were brown and pocked with boulders, but where there were plants, they were astonishing.

In the town of Carlsbad, so near the ocean, the mists keep the temperatures  moderate and my son and his wife do not even have air conditioning in their new apartment complex.

Further inland, the air heated up and the flowers were scarcer. It will be fascinating to see what is there now, as the mountains and the coastal regions approach winter.

I'll bring back pictures to share with you. And memories to sustain me.

In the meantime, there will be a new garden quotation to inspire you every day, and a Thanksgiving Day treat. So check back.

While I am away, just talk amongst yourselves....

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden inspirations
        

Try as we may, there will be failures. Moving a plant to another part of the garden sometimes makes all the difference, but enough is enough: getting a garden together requires a measure of ruthlessness." --Pamela J. Harper, “Designing with Perennials”,

Posted by Susan Reimer at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden quotations
        

"April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain." --T.S. Eliot, "The Waste Land"

Posted by Susan Reimer at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden quotations
        

“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.” --Iris Murdoch

Posted by Susan Reimer at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden quotations
        

Start thinking pecan pie.

The folks who make just about all the canned pumpkin in the world are reporting that this year's harvest was so poor that we're going to see the impact on our grocery shelves this holiday season.

Libby's says heavy rains during the 13-week harvest in Morton, Ill., -- pumpkin capital of the world -- frustrated efforts to collect all the pumpkins. That, on top of a poor growing season.

"Libby’s has been part of [the holiday pie] tradition for more than 80 years and we appreciate that honor," said vice president Paul Bakus. "That's why we wanted to alert bakers to the anticipated shortage.

"Our calculations indicated that we may deplete our inventory of canned Libby's pumpkin as we approach the Thanksgiving holiday."

There was a shortage of pumpkin in August and September, too, when Libby's typically relies on surpluses from the previous season. But 2008 wasn't much of a year, either, and home cooks started noticing the empty spots on grocery store shelves.

Libby's, as reported here on Garden Variety, seemed confident that the 2009 harvest, which was scheduled to roll into the stores by the end of September, would take up any slack. But the rainy fall made it impossible for the heavy trucks to get into the fields.

The longer the pumpkins sit in the field, the poorer the quality, said Libby's, and the company is considering simply plowing the remaining pumpkins into the fields to enrich the soil for 2010.

Meanwhile, Giant, Safeway and Wegman's in Maryland report enough canned pumpkin on hand to make it to next Thursday. Giant, in particular, anticipated the shortage and contracted for other brands.

For a look at a Libby's tractor stuck in the mud, keep reading.

Continue reading "Pumpkin crisis" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden news
        

"The Best Plants Come with a Story." --Maria Rodale in Organic Gardening Magazine, June/July 2006

Posted by Susan Reimer at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden quotations
        

Baltimore Sun file photo

I found my neighbor Bob just outside my picket fence the other day, using his leaf blower in reverse - sucking up, and chopping up, the leaves my husband had swept into the street.

Next, he went into the leaf bags we'd put out for recycling and was sucking those dry, too.

Bob, as you might guess, is a big believer in composting and in using leaves as mulch in his gardens.

I agree. But things are a little tricky at my house.

My husband is kind enough to blow the leaves out of my many gardens and then run over them with his mulching lawn mower, bagging them as he goes.

I use a bag or two in my compost pile.

And then I put the rest right back on my gardens.

My dear husband is so tolerant of all my gardening, but I think this chore maddens him. It is pretty clear I am undoing what he has just done!

There is a school of thought that all leaves must be removed from the garden, to prevent disease and infestations. And of course, there is Bob's point of view: leaves are a gardener's gold.

(Susan Harris does a good job of sorting out these opinions on her Sustainable Gardening blog).

Me? I'm just trying to keep the peace in the house.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Weekend Chores