Spring is Here?

I went out to my mail box today and found that my crocuses

have started to bloom.

 First I had to clear some of last year's debris 

before I could get some pictures, though.

 This points out an important lesson that we learned

during our trip to Hobbit Gardens on Saturday:

you can't know what is going on in your gardens 

unless you are out walking in or tending to your gardens every day.

 I brushed the leaves off the purple crocuses.

An hour or so later, 

they opened their blooms.

I even saw my first robins of the year

while out on my walk around the neighborhood today.

Odd how much later I notice the robins here than in Ohio.

I would almost always see the robins return in late January

in Southeastern Ohio.

 

Happy March 1st!

A Day at Hobbit Gardens

Our wonderful Vice President for Education

set up a field trip for our Master Gardener group.

This trip was to Hobbit Gardens outside of 

Fillmore, Indiana.

Hobbit Gardens is an organic herb farm

owned and operated by Constance Ferry.

 Hobbit Gardens was organic before

organic was hip.

We did our part to help save the planet

and carpooled up to Hobbit Gardens.

It was about an hour and a half drive from the 

north side of B-town.

We drove through a few snow squalls on our way there.

There was even snow on the ground as we finally turned

into the gravel lane that led us to Hobbit Gardens.

 We arrived at 10 am.

Sadly, the gardens are asleep,

although Constance assured us that she has been

able to harvest feverfew near the house all winter long,

due to the mild weather.

 The herb garden.

I would love to see this in season.

Interestingly, 

we could smell the thyme as we walked past.

 Inside the shop.

 It was cool in the shop.

We were served lunch - a vegetarian lunch.

Lunch was a mixed salad topped with flax seed, chopped parsley,

and a tahini vinaigrette.

We were also served homemade whole wheat bread 

and red grapes.

 

Dessert, if you will, was rose petal scones with rose hip jam.

Delicious and all organic.

So what did we learn?

Only 1/32 of the surface of the earth is used to grow 

 all the food for all

the population of the planet.

It takes 100 years to create 1 inch of top soil.

The number one job of a gardener should be

to Grow Soil!

If you do that, you will have a healthy and vibrant garden.

We need pest insects so that we can have 

beneficial insects in our gardens.

So, don't use insecticides!

Organic gardening "stores" energy in the earth.

Use green grass clippings 

(as long as no chemicals have been applied to the grass)

as mulch around tomatoes and pepper plants

as the this mulch will heat the soil and make the plants happy.

Only buy cold pressed or expeller pressed olive oils.

When you fertilize and/or water plants,

you make the plants dependent upon those things.

DON'T DO IT!,

Doing these things creates weaker plants.

 

And Gardening is never benign.

We are always changing nature by the very act of gardening.

We left at 3:30 pm.

It was a lovely day,

spent with wonderful people.