Update: 2/16/09 Well, all of our birds that we had in January have flown the coup. Not a one has been spotted in my back or front yard. We've had food in the feeder. They stayed while we had all of the nasty cold weather and now it's been rather nice. I did see a few Canadian Geese and one robin while in town today. Less snow and more lawn showing. Hopefully if anyone participated in the bird count, you actually had some birds to count.

Great Backyard Bird Count

Take part in this year's Great Backyard Bird Count sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Audubon. This special event is to take place February 13-16, 2009, so mark your calendars. What a great way to spend a winter weekend with your kids or grandchildren. Grab a pair of binoculars and a camera ... follow the directions here. Stop back and let me know if you participate ... I'd love to see your photos.

Photo Credit

A new twist to container gardening. Try turning an old hard plastic wading pool into the perfect large scale container garden. Check out the directions here. There are many other urban gardening ideas that I am going to try in addition to my traditional garden ... such as using old tires, burlap bags, etc. I just happen to have an old wading pool that is seldom used. This plan may yield my salad garden freeing up more garden space for larger crops.

Photo Credit

Plotting away ...

Things I'd like to grow this spring:

sweet carrots
green onions
mesclun mix lettuce
basil, parsley, thyme, rosemary, mint, cilantro
tomatoes
green beans (on poles)
pickling cukes (on poles)
yellow crooked neck squash
radish
peppers, hot/sweet

sweep peas
marigolds
geraniums

I'm itching to garden ... but must wait, and wait. So while waiting, I'm researching a few new gardening gadgets to try this coming spring. This wall of water product (through Burpee) has piqued my interest! A neighbor of mine swore by them last year. She was the only one in our area with vine ripened tomatoes. While ours didn't even begin to ripen until late September ... early October ... picked green and stored in the basement.

Snow bound.
My garden is asleep under waist high snow.
I know where a beehive is hidden in my garden wall, now covered shoulder high with snow. Everywhere I look, the frost has a grip til the sun's rays can melt and give warmth to renew.
Drip, drip, drip. I want to see all of my home's roof 'neath the snow drape.
Still snow bound.

by: Mrs. Mac
January 1, 2009
A toast to all good things learned from tending my garden this new year!