Gustafson Garden

As I look back over my garden photos from last summer, I am becoming anxious for spring to arrive. Is January is too early to start thinking about ordering seeds and beginning my starts? I want to plant more at the ORLC community garden this year, but what can I plant there that will be more resistant to the grasshoppers that have made that area their home? Potatoes and pumpkins did well last year so I’ll plant those again and I think I’ll add more onions and start a bed of garlic into rotation in the fall. Ah, it feel good to dream about gardening in the dark days of winter.

This morning in the garden the humming bird couple were doing their usual rounds. First checking out the bee balm and day lillies, then zooming up to the geraniums on the deck, and then diving down to the neighbor’s hanging feeder. They briefly paused on the edge of the fence giving me a good look before they bolted off to the next vibrant flower.

In the front garden our family of robins was bonding over the hovering insects near the pond. The adolecent robins still have some speckled feathers on their chests, but they are almost as large as their parents. I’m not sure where their nest was built, but the family made our whole yard their home this summer. Often the robins would follow me as I weeded looking through the holes for tasty worms.

It has been over a week since our chickens moved to a new home. I’m suprised how much I miss them. Saying goodbye is always the hardest part of moving. Now that I only have little over a week left it my garden, I have a lot of saying goodbye to do. I’m trying to harvest and cook as much as I can this week. But there will still be plenty left when I move. How do I say goodbye to plants? I wish I could take them with me.

I harvested the first of my scarlet runner beans yesterday. I’m surprised what slow growers they were. I think I planted them the beginning of June, but they didn’t really take off until the end of July. The beans pods are about 6 inches long and 1/2 inch wide and very tasty raw and steamed.