Heading North

While I have enjoyed the glories of a late Virginia spring, I have finally packed my car full of seedlings and head north today. The garden gate should swing open early tomorrow morning, and this blog will be fully open for business for yet another season.

Let the tomato season begin

headed to their new home

I am excited about the varieties of tomatoes I found on my annual greenhouse tour in southwest Virginia this week. Longdale Greenhouse always carries some unusual varieties. And my friends at Walatoola have been nursing along some very interesting varieties in their upstairs nursery. They have names I’ve never heard before like Sioux and Porterhouse. Here’s a listing of my current tomato seedlings

Better Boy - 8; Early Girl - 4; Italian Sweet -4; Supersteak - 4; Boxcar Willie - 8; Supersweet 100 - 4; Viva Italia - 2; German Johnson - 1; Princepe Borghese - 1; Little Moma - 1; Steak Sandwich - 1.

I sort of vowed at the end of last season that I wasn’t going to give my whole garden over to “fussy” heirlooms this year. That’s why the Better Boys and the Early Girls are there. But boy would I like to taste an Italian Sweet this year … or a Boxcar Willie. Talk about tomato flavor … So the journey of heartbreak known as tomato gardening begins again.

Meanwhile in my own nursery, maybe six of my artichokes are up and would probably benefit from a transplanting. My grow lights are up north, so everyone in the nursery will have to wait a week before they get the steady light they deserve to keep from getting leggy.

My friends at Walatoola had started a set of Early Girls REALLY early this year and are propping them up with pussy willow branches waiting for the threat of the last frost to pass this weekend.

Early Girls with Pussy Willow Stakes

Hurray for dirty nails !!

It's Good to Be Back!

I can’t remember an April when my fingernails were as dirt free as they are now. But all that was remedied as I started through my mail on Tuesday and uncovered all the seed packets that had arrived in my absence. Even BEFORE I opened the seed packets, I went to the potting bench and set up some seed trays and put the dirt “on to warm” on a mat in the guest bathroom.

Artichokes should be started in mid February if you have any hope of tasting one by September. Here I am in mid April just starting the task. I have two new varieties this year … they are both from Peter’s Seeds and Research … called Northern Star and Emerald. They say the Northern Star is bred to overwinter and produce the following spring April – June in northern climates. I’m game. Then Emerald is freeze resistant to 0 degrees and should produce this year. Oh what I would give to have a lush perennial field of artichokes like I saw in the Loire Valley and in Provence. As if there isn’t enough heartache in being a New England gardener just trying to coax a red tomato out of the ground, I have to introduce winter angst by being obsessed by artichokes!

So it is good to be back and focused on the garden once again. Besides artichokes, there are some other goodies in my cache of seed packets.

Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin, Candy Roaster Squash, a Sunburst Patty Pan, and two varieties of beets: Early Wonder Tall Top and Detroit Supreme. Those are just the highlights.

More to come soon. It’s good to be back.

Where is Beaune?

Market day in Beaune

Saturday is Market Day in Beaune. I got out there early this morning and captured some of the sights.

French breakfast radishes were in abundance

as were olives

and even fresh young garlic

vichyssoise anyone?

and a basket to bring it all home in

Inside the market there were various butchers and cheese makers. And on the edges were a few locals with some unusual items. Here are some fresh goose eggs!


and THIS woman was selling eggs to regular customers and even had a sprig of thyme and a skinned rabbit for sale.


And here is a special Easter cheese covered in a green herbal gel.

An escape from the city

I took Line 1 out to the Bois de Vincennes and walked around the Parc Floral. I had thought it would just be a good space in which to stretch my legs on a long walk. Well it was that and more. Once I was in the woods and among the plants I realized how urban my life has been for the past month. Even if it IS the most beautiful city in the world, Paris is still a city. So here are some of the things I saw.

tulips ("Concerto")

anemones

bright spring plantings

irises as far as the eye could see

all kinds of camelias

Peonies starting to come up

and an enormous cardoon encouraged by the mild Paris winter

and keeping watch over it all, a handsome peacock !

And even more signs of spring in Paris

More signs of spring in Paris

Fresh herbs

strawberries and white asparagus

legs of lamb decorated with vegetable flowers

and, of course, daffodils

Thanks to Garden Design

Spreading the word about garden blogs

Had Judith not commented that she had seen the article in one of her comments I would still be scratching my head about the sudden spike in readership. The article to which I am referring is an article on garden blogs in this month's issue of Garden Design in which this blog was reviewed.

When I first started dreams and bones it was simply a way of keeping my own diary and of being able to say to friends, "if you care about what's going on in the garden, you can look here, but I'm not going to burden you in an email or a letter." Then I wondered, do others keep blogs about their gardens (silly rabbit) and that brought me to Sheila's good work at the Providence Journal. From those links I met gardeners that I have come to think of as friends. And it is always refreshing to return to Sheila's list and find new bloggers. It was the links in other people's blogs that got me seeing just how wide this world is. And when Old Roses started Garden Voices the world seemed infinite.

When a magazine lists blogs they like, it opens the blogosphere of gardening up to a different readership. So if you came here because you read about this blog in Garden Design, welcome. Be sure to read the archives, be sure to link to the others I have listed and please, be sure to come back again when the earth is warm and the garden is inspiring more posts.

And, one more sure fire way for us to learn about each others' blogs is for you to leave a comment. Please do that. I'd love to learn about you and your garden.

Signs of Spring in Paris

bulbs

pansies

and WAY too many seed packets

and, of course, daffodils

The Travel Blog is up and running

OK. What you are reading is the GARDEN blog called Dreams and Bones. There isn't much happening in here this March because I am away from home traveling.

So if you care to follow the TRAVEL blog called Reflections Away from Home, you may click below or use the new link bar to the right.

I will post here about garden issues while I am away, but shall not return here in earnest until mid-April. If you are new to Dreams and Bones, please use the sidebar to read archived pages from earlier seasons. And please return in mid-April.

All are welcome to visit the debut of Reflections Away from Home

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Paris is Unlocking

I was surprised to see early blooming crabapples showing their blossoms on the drive in to the city. Looks like there will be a bit of "unlocking" here after all.

Unlocking is a season invented by Kurt Vonnegut. If you are not familiar with his six season scheme, please

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Bon Voyage

As the rest of the world fills up the seed trays and begins the journey of hope that is March for a vegetable gardener, I am headed back to Paris with not even a pair of garden gloves in my luggage. All is on hold until mid-April.

I am thinking about beginning a new blog that is about travel. If I should do so, the link will be right here. And from time to time I will post here about the garden side of my travels.

My amaryllis are just now starting to bloom ... to them and to you I say

A BIENTOT !

Be Careful What You Wish For ...

I am spending this week before President's Day as I did last year, skiing with my husband in Stowe, VT. We were both raised in New England and we have the memory that there is no snow too big to bring down a Vermonter. When we heard that the coastal Nor’easter was headed our way, we were VERY excited. It would arrive on Valentine’s Day. We would watch the snow fall as we ate our romantic Valentine’s Day dinner at a nearby restaurant. The roads would be plowed, all would be accessible and we would go on with life as usual because that’s what New Englanders do!

Well let me tell you about our romantic Valentine’s Day dinner. First, the restaurant we had planned to go to called to say they were closing because of the snow. Well since it was called Michael’s on the Hill (hill being the operative word) we forgave them. We then planned to go to an Italian restaurant up the mountain road … BUT

The parking lot at the inn where we were staying had not been plowed and despite a mighty effort on our parts which included a solid 40 minutes of shoveling we realized, all wheel drive or no, this little Subaru was not going anywhere. The innkeeper offered to drop us off at a place just up the road on their way out to dinner. This now being our third choice for a romantic Valentine’s dinner, we were starting to suffer Stockholm syndrome. But when we entered the door, we were greeted with the news that they had closed the kitchen and soon would be closing the bar. We begged them to sell us a bowl of cold chili and armed with same we headed back to our room in a driving snow, dodging large snowplows as we walked back along the Mountain Road. So much for a special Valentine’s dinner.

Then this morning we got to the mountain only to discover that all but two lifts had been closed due to the wind. Perhaps tomorrow. So forty inches of new snow sits out there on the mountain nearly all of it inaccessible. Grrrrr.

Perhaps the lesson here is … all things … even snow are better in moderation.

And the other lesson … even a cold bowl of chili and an orange shared before a fire with the one you love the most in the world is pretty romantic after all.

"... a small town holds each other up, and lays a good one down"

The memorial service for the father of a friend brought me back to my summer home for a few days. Our town is the agricultural heart of the island and it was the Agricultural Hall that was the heart of the town yesterday. We gathered there in front of the hearth as one by one, children, grandchildren, colleagues and friends gave testimony to a life well lived.

I am sitting here this morning in a living room awash in sunshine. I spy my resting garden out the window. The ground is hard. All is still.

When I awoke on Thursday morning, and heard the radio announcer say, “Today is Thursday, February 8, 2007” I realized that had she lived, my mother would be celebrating her 90th birthday. One of the ways I pass my time in the winter is crawling out on the unfinished twigs of the family tree. I had been working for a few days on one of my mother’s great grandparents because of an email I had received. I was in the middle of that task when the phone rang. It was my mother’s brother, calling from across the country to remind me of my mother’s birthday. I hadn’t heard from him in over a year and it had been on my mind to check in on him. We caught up on family news and reminisced about mother. It was just the right way to honor her memory.

Here’s to lives well lived … and to stopping and remembering along the way.

Reprise

Just in case you missed this one last year, here ... back by popular demand ... is Sue Watkins' take on seed catalogues and the dangers they pose.

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AWOL

I’ve been on the run since I last wrote. A trip south to Chattanooga followed by a European trip all left me with little fodder for a garden blog.

But yesterday we had our first snow here in Northern Virginia and I am beginning to feel as though the planet has righted itself and gotten in the groove of winter. Only now do I feel justified in scanning my seed catalogues and thinking about spring planting.

The truth is, there really isn’t much to say about the garden these days. But I have returned to my local farmer’s market on a regular basis. I now have a milk vendor along with greens and eggs and apples and bread AND Polyface chicken. I’ve really fallen for a bread they make called Struan bread. Yummmmmm.

To keep you entertained I am including a picture I took last fall during the carrot harvest, right after the new trees went in.