This year, I swore no indoor seed growing.  Here's why: I really don't have a place for them except the basement (where I'll forget to water). The seedlings get leggy from not enough light (although I use full spectrum, grow lights); and quite frankly, I don't wanna. After placing orders for those seeds I can direct sow (outdoors), I gathered up the  catalog multitude for recycling. Totally Tomatoes landed in a basket, and a small, lonely sigh escaped from within its depths.  I tried to ignore it, but then a tabbed page fell open to my deep, dark paramours. Smitten by their charcoal beauty, I began leafing through their descriptions. Carbon, Black Krim, Black from Tula, Japanese Black Truffle  or Trifele (new to me), Paul Robeson ((named after the African-American concert singer and activist) and Black Brandywine (more disease resistant in my garden than the original). Deep, rich, dark taste. ...

Yesterday's snow melted away, and once again the landscape is brown and gray.  I'm a poet and didn't know it.  Ha! At 26F outdoors, there are the occasional pansies bowing their little heads. The Helleborus argutifolius 'Silver Lace' is trying to bloom, but it's been so cold and snowy.  As soon as the weather stabilizes a bit, I'll trim away the old leaves to make way for the new. Hamamelis x intermedia 'Diane' is just beginning to bloom.  The blooms really are this red, but they are also a bit shrunken from the cold. Do Goldfinches count as blooms?  What about chickens?  No, I suppose not. Indoors, it's a cornucopia of flowers.  We have African violets all over. The Cyclamen HH gave me for Valentine's Day.  He didn't know what it was, but he thought it was pretty.  Besides, as he told me, he went to Lowe's for something (I...

When I was a child, there was a teaching catch phrase called: "Lifelong Learners."  The idea was to instill the love of learning so much within a child's psyche that he or she would continue to search for information and ideas throughout his or her life.   Now, my children are growing up, and it's a bittersweet time.  Two are teenagers and nearly gone, while one will still play in the dirt with me, but soon she will move on too.  That's how we're made, and I now realize the time is very short for me to have any further influence over them. I hope I've given them enough foundation so that they can soon spread their wings and fly. I do know this:  they know how to care for flowers and vegetables, because, I hear them tell other people (like their teachers) information about soil, flowers, and how to prune. ...

Well, according to Annie anyway.  Most of January and now, halfway through February, Fog is our constant companion.  His sisters, Gray Clouds and Snow are also frequent guests.  If a body were going to have Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), this would be the year.  Note:  if you're feeling bluer than usual, sitting beneath a full spectrum light for thirty minutes a day will help.  You can do it while reading your stack of gardening magazines and books, which I am sure will make it work even better.  {A big smile and a wink.} In a normal Oklahoma winter, it's cold, but the sun shines.  This is not your average Oklahoma winter.  According to Bryan Painter's Weather Blog and the National Weather Service, as of February 9, 2010, Oklahoma had its 7th highest total annual snowfall at 19.9 inches.  Oklahoma City's average snowfall is 9.5 inches annually.  Yesterday, outside Guthrie, we...