birthday sonnet

-to ilona -

felicitations, my dear friend!
may our long connection never end.
may skies for you be ever blue
your garden grace forever true.
your love for bushes, trees and flowers,
so generous with your blogging hours
and musings from your "ivory tower"

surrounded by such country love
showered with blessings from above.
closest contact with this good earth
a walk in beauty, for all it's worth-
beloved child of God since birth.


i am posting this today, so everyone can send
their greetings tomorrow! (1/26/2010)
did you ever think we'd get this far??

love, j.

My Ohio Winter

It has been a snowy and cold winter, the present season broke records for cold temperatures. I like the picturesque snow covered landscape and several mornings I awakened to hoar frosts that transformed the garden into white traceries of laced branches and stems against the sequined, white velvet snow.

The Cinderella winter season has given way to the morning after of mid-January's thawing, now. The Snowflake Ball is over, and only scattered pumpkin patch masses of drifted, dirty snow remain. A throwcover of fog hides the sad remnants on many evenings and mornings.

Am I sad to see the frigid temperatures and the diamond studded frostings go? In my hermit lifestyle of winter I am little inconvenienced by the surrounding fortress of the cold and ice, and can enjoy the view, while sparing the trouble. Each season has its beauty and I march along with the parade. So, no, I am neither sad nor happy to see the next sequel in the seasonal series of weather conditions. I did take some pictures.

Stone Wall Pockets

This is such a neat idea- I have never seen anything quite like it. Not sure how well it would work where there is serious frost action, but I wonder if something similar couldn't be used with effect?

clipped from cambrianurseryandflorist.blogspot.com

Community Farming Video

Green Meadows Farm is a video recounting the community farming project that gives people of a community the opportunity to partner with a farm and experience the production and educate their family at the same time.

Interesting Organic Farmer Video

I liked viewing this, and although a little jerky in the photography, the conversation between Serena, of Farm Chicks and Verne, the farmer of Strawberry Hill Farm, held some great insights.

I don't think I would give up hybrid corn anytime soon, though. The exchange of taste and vigor for something that isn't super high on the nutrition list isn't one I'd, personally, make.

Gardening, Greening, and Saving Society

Survivor, America is a financial oriented article/video from Yahoo Finance, today. It centers around a point of view that many of us have become familiar with- but I wanted to look at it from the Gardener's perspective.
In short, Gerald Celente, director of the Trends Research Institute, predicts that things are going to become much worse in our economy. As Aaron Task, the interviewer, drew out, that prediction is on the dire side of somewhere between the warm sweater days of the seventies and the breadlines of the thirties.

Personally, I'm not of the opinion that it looks as though it will go to that low of a level, but it could, and it certainly looks like we must make long term changes in the way we choose to live. So... how does Celente picture how that looks, and how do I believe that will look, and how does this impact gardeners?

Before you read on: I think gardeners are a step ahead of the game and can impact the situation in important ways.

January- The Month of Two Faces

January, being named for the Roman god Janus, is something of a two way street in time. The name Janus means "archway" and he was a god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings and endings [Janus. I sit and think of this pagan mythology early on Sunday morning.

I, too, look backward and forwards at the same time while ensconced in the icy white shrouds of winter frost, cold snow strewn winds, and pallid blue skies. I am the Snow Queen this month, enjoying the cover of snow- because if one must endure the cold, at least make it tolerable with snow. Of course I say that now, with the frigid temperatures preserving the pristine white of the fluffy mounds of whipped cream drifts; in the grayed and soiled snows of January melts I'm not so enamored of the treasures of the snow.

If my tiller were in good working order, which it is not, I would make use of the singular time that appears in most of my winters: a dry earth of heaved soil which when covered in snow yields the "poor man's fertilizer". As I learned, the snow will still give nitrogen to the ground, whether I can take advantage of the thawed, yet not soaked, earthen openings of my vegetable garden space, or not.

Snow and Nitrogen:
There is something else that happens when it snows: nitrogen is deposited by the snow and absorbed either into the soil food web residing and active at low temperatures or by plants as a result of nitrogen fixation, a microbial activity which, astonishingly enough, can take place even at low temperatures. Even when the soil is frozen, its eventual thaw can result in the absorption of nitrogen.

Well, it turns out not only snow, but rain as well, contains nitrogen compounds that were suspended in air as they formed.
It is estimated that 2 to 12 pounds of nitrogen are deposited per acre as a result of snow and rain. Most of this nitrogen comes from emissions as a result of burning fossil fuels and industrial manufacturing. The rest comes from lightning fixing atmospheric nitrogen, which makes up 70 percent of air, as I recall.
snow "the poor farmer's fertilizer." - Full Story
==========Snow
Ruth Kirk, the author of "Snow": "Snow not only insulates against low minimum temperatures but also against fluctuations.
A bare soil surface may be heated by direct sunshine, then cooled in seconds as clouds pass overhead, and its temperatures often surge drastically from day to night. Snow moderates these swings and that can be a crucial advantage."

She also corroborates the old saw that snow is the poor farmer's fertilizer. Ms. Kirk found evidence that snow, drawing on ions from the upper atmosphere, adds nitrates as well as some sulfates, calcium and potassium to the soil. -NYT Story

January is slow to warm in terms of outdoor work, and so it is perfect for forward looking plans and backward looking calculations. Regrets are best put to bed by facing them and creating new pictures of future efforts.

Questions I ask myself now:

• What is reasonable to expect from my resources in the coming year? Do I have energy/money/time for the efforts I imagine?
• How should I re-prioritize to accomplish what I would like? What life balance must be taken into account? Do I weight my desires too lightly, or too highly? 
• Is my plan healthgiving and fruitful? Or time consuming and depleting? How can I adjust it to be more positive?
• Am I prepared to make my dreams come true?

These questions must come first, before drawing the plans, or ordering from catalogues. The garden is such a transitory thing, it is the perfect lesson lab for life. How often has it shown me my folly of believing I held control? Or the illusion of "sheer willpower"? Burns had his wee mousie, I have memories of last year's tomatoes.

Gingerbread Houses

Gingerbread Houses in the Franklin Park Conservatory. Christmas season contained a display of Gingerbread houses.

 

Be sure to see Gardens in Ohio and A Botanical Wedding.

More Chihuly

Chihuly Reimagined at Franklin Park Conservatory

While not getting to all the events we wanted to this Holiday season, we did manage an after Christmas trip to the Franklin Park Conservatory. I have a number of picture posts to make, but the first thing I wanted to highlight was the medley of art glass and botanical beauty that is so well melded in the Chihuly exhibitions that Franklin Park Conservatory presents.








I think this is the perfect winter mix, and complements the fun Butterfly exhibit during the warmer months. These glass sculptures are like tropical flowers bursting forth from the foliage and lend excitement to already fascinating plantings throughout the Conservatory's Victorian Palm House, Orchid house, and global climate zone areas (although there are plenty of other sculptures tucked here and there and powerfully displayed in the main court).

There were poinsettias for added color, but they were not a strong presence compared with the glass art. In a basement exhibit are were Gingerbread houses of all sorts for a very Christmas-sy display. Pictures of that, later. For now, Chihuly collages and the poinsettias:








More about Franklin Park Conservatory at their website. The Chihuly exhibit continues through March 28, 2010.

---

Be sure to see Gardens in Ohio and A Botanical Wedding.

Dear Readers

Since this is the beginning of a New Year (2010 woot,woot!), I was hoping for input from the readers and passers-by of this blog. What would give you more pleasure and value from coming to this journal? If you would please take time to comment and give whatever suggestion occur to you, I would love to take them into consideration as I plant the direction of the posts here.
Morguefile photo

Thanks for all the readership and support of this year. Comments, especially, make a blog worth reading and writing for me, so thanks so much for those who gave their most valuable resource -their time. Thank you for those who signed up as friends, and all the camaraderie of my fellow garden bloggers, too.



Thanks, as well, to Joanne for her touching and able writing, to John for his input, and many others, some who get mention here.... but all are appreciated:

• T Opdycke
• Lonadawn  
• The Write Gardener,TC
  
• Coneflower
• Janet, Queen of Seaford
• Elizabeth, EAL 
• Trey 
• Dee, Red Dirt Ramblings
• Rob, Our French Garden 
• MsRobin
• Zach

...and all the rest of you that I might not have listed! May we have more link love in the coming year.
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The end of '09 saw an increase in spammers here- so in getting rid of some of them, I accidentally deleted a comment or two that wasn't supposed to go :(

I am so sorry for that, and will be more careful in the future- because as I said, comments from readers are one of the best things in the blog experience in my opinion.

Spammers are the bane of blogging.