Our
Victory Garden is resting peacefully for the winter, but there’s still work to
do—adding layers of mulch and cardboard in some places. When it comes to
gardening the green way, we’re no experts here at the McFaddin-Ward House. But
we’re doing our research, and learning as we go. We hope you’ll learn with us,
as we figure out what works, what doesn't work so well, and everything in
between! We've also got a great group of volunteers who are ready to help
out—we just need to schedule our garden days.
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| The garden's lemongrass, which did not survive the winter. |
Most
of the plants died, or died down to their roots; the snapdragons amazingly
survived the heat of summer and the first round of freezes but finally
succumbed to the 20-degree (Fahrenheit) nights in early January. Surprisingly,
the lemon grass is all brown! We thought it would overwinter better, but again
the severe cold must have been too much for it.
The sage, rosemary and thyme survived, however; bring us a little parsley, and we’ll sing you a verse of “Scarborough Fair!” Plus last fall we planted lettuce, beets, cabbage, and kohl rabi, and they’re all green and growing. They’re obviously a lot tougher than they look! We may try to plant some other crops—carrots or greens or spinach—Peter Rabbit would love us!
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| The garden's rosemary is doing quite well, despite the colder temperatures in December. |
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| The garden is, for now, weed-free. |
Hooray!
The Bermuda grass and nut grass are at last all brown and dead-looking. Last
summer they were the scourge of the garden. We sprayed them with Avenger, an
organic herbicide made with orange oil, and it (along with the cold) seemed to
work. We don’t trust them to go that easily, though, and plan to put black
barrier under the bricks in the walk to keep them down.
Just
before Christmas we planted tulips and daffodils for early spring color. Can’t
wait for them to come up!
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| Stick around, and learn with us as we go! |
