2009 - a new year

Its a nice brisk morning with great sunshine and promises to warm up enough today to go for some outside activity.
This morning I was noticing the foliage of the grape hyacinths, bright and medium green, under a dogwood tree in the yard. The foliage has been up since late fall, but it stands out now as you wander around the yard and look for life in the cold garden. Don't mistake these for wild onions and pull them up. (Which is even easier to do when they arrive in the fall and you might be doing some energetic garden clean up.) The bulb is a similar size but the stems are narrower than onion, and of course lack the distinctive onion odor. They will bloom in the spring, small and purple, maybe neighboring with the daffodils.

It's January First 2009, the moon is in Pisces until early Saturday; the Farmers Almanac advises that Pisces is good for planting, transplanting and grafting.

Happy New Year!

December Weather 08

Cool and rain...this is a Tennessee winter. We are fast approaching the Winter Solstice - December 21 at 1900 hours GMT - the longest night and the shortest daylight. After that, start noticing the minutes being added to your daylight activities.

Garden activities: planning and planting

Take some time on the couch to look at great perennial catalogs, review your 08 garden, think about what you want to do in the coming year.
Yes you can still plant trees and shrubs, as long as you can work the ground. The extra wet season makes it a great time to plant: plants are dormant, they are mostly putting activity into establishing strong root systems, the extra moisture from now through April means this is the easiest time of year to plant trees and shrubs. No worries about extra watering after the first couple of weeks of TLC.

Enjoy the winter.