OH NO! NOT MORE SNOW!

This morning as I woke up, I found my garden covered in white again. Oh well. The green was nice while it lasted.

But much as I long for spring, my heart rejoiced at all the beauty of this winter wonderland. The pines and every woodland tree are now frosted in white, as if they were part of a designer wedding cake. The snow drapes off the garden shed and covers a pair of urns that stand as sentinels beside a garden bench. All around me is a sea of white, except where some winter grasses poke through the top. I'm so thankful now that we didn't rip out all those weeds! What a lovely contrast with all this pristine splendor!

Winter can be so beautiful! But I have to admit, sometimes it seems like an ordeal we have to go through before we can enjoy our gardens again.

Have you ever thought that snow is actually a gardener's friend? Maybe you've heard that snow is a poor man's fertilizer. It's really not a old wive's tail. Scientific studies from New Hampshire's Department of Natural Sciences have discovered that snow contains nutrients that penetrate into the soil and act like fertilizer come spring. These nutrients include nitrogen, sulfur and some other trace elements. The largest amount comes from nitrogen, which all plants need for optimum growth. Without it, they can't make a plant's building blocks. They can't even manufacture its own DNA!

Some studies have even suggested that there's more of these nutrients in snow than can be found in rainfall. And speaking of rainfall, let's talk about moisture for a minute. It's actually rained on my garden this month (yes, even in February!). It's been a crazy kind of winter, that's for sure!

But even though the rain soaks in for a bit, it will soon run off when the ground becomes saturated. And that's easy enough when the ground is still partially frozen. But snow provides a slow-release moisture, for it will sit on the garden for a long time, then slowly melt into the ground. And this is what enables the water to soak more deeply into my garden beds. It's kind of like the difference between watering your garden with a sprinkler verses watering it with a soaker hose.

And what is happening under all that snow? This summer, we bought a new lawn tractor which made it possible for us to make bushels and bushels of leaf mulch. So now, all our gardens have been covered with several inches of brown, fluffy mulch. Naturally, our soil is heavy with clay and we've discovered that leaf mulch lightens up the soil--it acts like compost in transforming it into a soft loam that's much easier for gardening.

And when there's a good covering of snow on top of all that mulch, it's going to help the micro-organisms that live under there to break down the leaves and turn it into good food for my garden. In fact, the University of Colorado reports that these micro-organisms become more active under the snow! That means they're making more nutrients from our leaf mulch and making it available for all our baby plants in the spring. I can hardly wait to see what good dirt I'm going to have this April, maybe even in March!

So when the snow is piling up, I'm feeling pretty thankful. As Andrew Wyeth once said, "I prefer winter--when you feel the bone structure in the landscape...Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show."

SWEET BEETS

Beets are one of my springtime delights. They're easy to grow and always give me a bumper crop of delicious food. But what can you do with them? When I was a kid, cooked beets found their way onto my plate--sliced thickly or cut into quarters--coming straight from a can.  Sometimes my mom would buy pickled beets at the store. I liked them both ways. So when I started gardening (when I was seven years old), beets were one of the first veggies I planted.

Nowadays, they're a big part of my kitchen garden. One year, they grew so big, I thought they were sugar beets! And we were afraid they would be too tough to eat. But we washed them up and baked them in the oven and they were every bit as tender as a young beet could be!

Have you tried baking beets? It is my favorite way to serve them. Roasting them brings out the hidden sweetness in this colorful vegetable (with all its wonderful juices).  And each bite is so smooth and tender, you'll want to make them a regular part of your family's wintertime eating.

HOW TO ROAST SWEET BEETS

Fresh Picking
When picking them from your garden, choose any size beet. But make sure they feel hard, not soft or squishy. You can also use the greens for a later meal--either fresh in a salad or cooked like spinach.

Package Your Beets
Slice off the beet greens and save them for a later meal. Then wash your beets and wrap them loosely in aluminum foil. You can wrap several small beets in one package. Large beets should be individually wrapped.

Roast Them Up
Preheat your own to 400 degrees. Put your beet packages on a cookie sheet. (Sometimes, even with careful wrapping, your beets may leak). Bake for about an hour. But baking time will vary, depending on the amount and size of  your beets. I like to test them every 20 minutes, pushing a fork or paring knife into their centers. Beets will be done when the fork comes out easily, just like when you are baking potatoes.

Skins or No Skins
This part is up to you. We like baked beets both ways. And I've found when I grow my own, the skin are very tender (as long as the beets don't get too old). If you want no skins, let your beets cool down so you can handle them. Hold them in your hand with a paper towel, then gently rub the skin away. The skin should slip off easily. If you have trouble, the beet probably needs to cook some more.

3 Big Reasons to Enjoy Sweet Beets

BEET HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE!  One study found that drinking one glass of beet juice lowered your blood pressure by an average of 4-5 points. The naturally occurring nitrates that are found in beets are turned into nitric acid by the body. This relaxes and dilates our blood vessels, which ends up improving blood flow and lowering blood pressure.

BEET EYE DISEASE! Beet greens are a good source of lutein, an anti-oxidant that helps protect eyes from age-related  macular degeneration and cataracts. They also contain a variety of phyto-   chemicals that are good for the nerves in your eyes.

BEET FATIGUE! Try some beet juice to rev up your engine for your next workout. One study I found showed that people who drank beet juice before their workout were able to exercise 16X longer!

GARDEN DREAMS

Some gardens are hidden secrets, tucked away behind an old stone wall or kept out of sight where no one can see them. But my garden isn't like that. It's all I can see as I look out my picture window into the backyard. 

I admit, it's not much to look at right now. The beds are empty except for a few hardy perennials. I can still see the dried branches of a tree peony or the stalks of a once flowering hibiscus. Only the chocolate mint and thyme can still be seen in a raised bed, overflowing its banks. Everything else is mulched with leaves and waiting for spring.

But when I look out there, I don't see my garden as it is. I see it as it can be and as it will be soon. My hope looks beyond the bare beds and paths and I end up dreaming about my potager, my kitchen garden of flowers, fruits and vegetables.

Helen Hayes once wrote, "All through the long winter, I dream of my garden."  I'm with you, Helen! I dream as I flip through seed catalogs. I dream as I draw maps of what my garden will look like. I dream as I watch gardening programs online or as I dig through yet another gardening book that I just had to have.

I dream and I wait through the winter. It's also my season for learning more about the garden. This year, I've bought several books that I am wading through: Designing the New Kitchen Garden by Jennifer Bartley, The Complete Gardener by Monty Don and Charles Dowding's Vegetable Course. And they are all changing my dreams.

They are more than just imagining what could be. Dreaming is planning and doing something with those dreams. It's also growing in knowledge so the plans will give me a rich harvest in fall and winter. I really believe that dreaming is an essential part of the gardening cycle. And so is waiting in hope.

Every year I have mishaps in the garden. Last year, the squash bugs devastated my buttercup squash and my pumpkins. The year before we suffered through tomato blight. But here I am--dreaming again of a new garden. I haven't forgotten the mistakes or the blights of the past. I think they're making me a better gardener. And they certainly don't stop me from trying again. Next year will always be a better year!

Do you ever think that way? You're not alone. Even in the Bible, I can see this same hope in the words of the apostle Paul, "Whoever plows should plow in hope and whoever threshes should thresh in hope of a share in the crop" (1 Corinthians 9:10, NRS). 

A farmer or a gardener aren't very different. We look at our fields and gardens with the same expectation: we believe we will see new growth. We believe a fresh start will bring in a rich harvest. We look beyond the sleeping beds, covered with snow and ice, and see something new and alive.

So every year as I dream about my garden, it teaches me something about faith. Faith looks forward. It builds on the past, what God has been doing in my life. But it also urges me forward, to believe in His promises of something better. Even the impossible. For faith isn't merely believing that God CAN do something, but that He WILL! I can be sure, that just as spring will come to my garden, God will create new life in my heart. God will bless me abundantly above all I could ever dream!

HE is "able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think or think, according to the power that works in us" (Ephesians 3:20, NKJV). So leaving the winter behind, I press on in faith, I look forward in hope, "to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own!" (Philippians 3:12, NRS)

GROWING UP

A thick blanket of snow still covers the garden. But I'm in planning mode for March when my gardening year will begin. This year's garden plan includes peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, and buttercup squash--all of which will be my vertical gardening plants. I've been boning up on vertical gardening to maximize our yields and space in the garden. Growing up also makes sense for healthier crops. Plants grown on trellises enjoy greater air circulation. This will translate into far less trouble with pests and disease. So my plants will produce more unblemished fruit. Not to mention less waste from rotting. 

Here's the scoop from Vertical Vegetable Gardening by Christ McLaughlin (winter is great for reading about gardening!):

"When plants are grown horizontally, they're often on soil that's damp and warm from the leaf cover. This exposes the plants unnecessarily to soil-borne diseases. Crops grown on a support have much fewer problems with rot, and therefore, waste. By allowing plants to grow up instead of out, you also limit their physical contact to neighboring plants. This is a major plus as plant diseases are readily transmitted through physical foliage contact" (page 6). 

I'm looking forward to bigger yields from our garden this year. I'm thinking growing up means growing more! More food on the table. More veggies in the freezer. More canning jars all filled up! 

I remember the 1st time we tried vertical gardening--outside of the usual tomato cages. My husband built a long trellis that acts as the focal point in our main garden. He erected 7 pressure treated posts with a decorative cap which he designed. There is a top bar at the top of each section (I love watching the birds perching up there!) And from post to post, he strung 5 strings of wire. 

Our plan was to grow winter squash with that trellis. I bought some soft ties, thinking I'd support the growing plants. After all, buttercup squash isn't light. Surely they will need a little help in growing up! But we were delightfully surprised that the tendrils of the squash latched onto the wire and to other squash quite on their own. The network of all those tendrils were all the plant needed to stay on our trellis. 

This year, my plan is to branch into trellises for tomatoes. We're going to set up a PVC system where our tomatoes will have all the support they need. Usually, I set up tomato cages. And I've tried all sizes and grades of wire ones. Two years ago, I bought the tallest and heaviest ones at my local Home Depot. But they were still too short for my heirloom tomatoes and our bush varieties were so heavy with fruit, some of the cages fell over. Argh! 

So this year, we're going to mimic what goes on in a greenhouse. They use a string and post method for support. So we're planning on giving that a whirl this year. I'm always experimenting in the garden, aren't you? It keeps everything fresh and fun behind the picket fence. 

It will be sometime before we get tomato fencing going, but I found my inspiration at this website from The Living Farm. Check it out! 

http://thelivingfarm.org/easy-pvc-tomato-trellis-part-one/

WHAT ARE YOU EATING THIS WINTER?

It's February in Michigan. And winter just keep dragging on. It's that time of year when I'm tired of looking at icicles hanging from the eaves and tramping through dirty snow. I like to sit in front of the woodstove, pouring through seed catalogs and wondering what I should grow in our little acre. Normally, I'm thinking of summertime, with luscious tomatoes and golden squashes on the vine. I don't usually think about, "What will I want to eat this winter?" But that's what I'm thinking today. Maybe I should be growing the best foods to eat this winter.

I think I should be growing more beets. Beet greens are lovely in a spring salad. And I love making "Sweet Beets" for my family. They're like Harvard beets but they're not pickled. They sit in a thick sauce, made from beet and orange juice, with a little honey and touch of lemon zest. It's a great side dish once in a while. But I'm taking a 2nd look at beets because I've just discovered they're high in nitrates, which means they help transport oxygen to my brain. A recent study from Wake Forest University showed that people who eat foods high in nitrates showed greater activity in their frontal lobes. That's the part of our brain where we make moral decisions. So that grabbed my attention right away. Plus the authors suggest that nitrates may help to ward off dementia in the 'golden years.'  I've seen what dementia has done to my mother, so that's definitely something I want to stay clear of.

Then there's cauliflower. I loved this veggie as a kid, especially when I could cover it with a thick, cheesy sauce. But lately, I've been passing it by to eat broccoli, which I love any way I find it. But I think I need to take a 2nd look at cauliflower because it's loaded with tryptophan. No other veggie comes close. If you're fighting insomnia or dragging yourself from home to work or vice versa, it could be you're low in tryptophan. This essential amino acid plays a big role in balancing mood and sleep patterns. And even better--it helps to curb our appetite! Wow! Definitely a friend if you're trying to shed pounds in the winter like me.

Of course, there's my all-time favorite--garlic. I can't imagine cooking without it! Every soup, casserole and pasta dish must have a sprinkling of this delicious seasoning. It's a must in my Picket Fence garden. And my favorite way to eat garlic is freshly roasted on a cast iron griddle or minced in a handy garlic press. Fresh is so much better, not just for taste but also what it does for my family's health.

You see, garlic is one of those amazing vegetables that can keep winter colds away. It has an ingredient called allicin which seems to stimulate the production of white blood cells. The more white cells we've got going for us, the stronger our protection against winter colds and viruses. It's nice to know that something I love to eat anyway is so good for me!

When I sent my seed order in last week, I wasn't thinking about what I'd like to eat next winter. These cold winter days, when I tend to hibernate inside, have really opened my eyes. I think I better make some more room for cauliflower and garlic in my kitchen garden.

WINTER WARMUP

It seems a funny time to start a blog on Backyard Gardening. But usually this time of year, my head always leans toward the garden. The holidays are behind me and the cold and ice drags on. I long for a little patch of green to bring sparkle to the landscape and to get my hands back in the cool earth! So this is a time for dreaming and a little planning. How can I make my backyard into a little farm? It's always been my goal ever since we moved in our new home. Gardening is in my blood. Somewhere there must be a farmer in my family tree! 

I am determined, more than ever, to be a backyard farmer. I don't have acres of tilled land in front of me (though I live only blocks away from farms that do). But with raised beds and intensive gardening methods, I know I can grow enough to feed our family through the summer, fall and winter...if I work at it. 

This year, I've joined the thousands of Americans who are staying clear of genetically modified foods. Health has always been a big consideration in how we eat. We see it as the smart way to go, choosing the best for building strong bodies and clear minds--to have more vitality for the long haul.  We're also a Christian family, so we want to serve the Lord with all we have and greater health means more years to help others and live for God. So what we eat matters. That's why we've become an organic family, eating a plant-based diet that's rich in anti-oxidants, flavor and fiber. 

I can buy a lot of healthy food from our local grocery store--they stock quite a bit of organic foods. But I'd like to have more say in the variety of foods I cook for my family. All the conflict over safe and honest labeling makes me want to eat less of processed foods and more from our own gardens. Plus, I just love to be outside, digging in the dirt. There's just something that unwinds inside me when I'm sitting in the garden, pulling weeds, and planting seeds. Like I said, there's just got to be a farmer somewhere in my family tree! 

So, I'm dreaming these days of our own Green Acres in the backyard. When 2016 rolled around, I opened up my computer and my handy Printmaster program. I use the shapes and clipart to map my kitchen garden behind the picket fence. I plan where I put my spring and summer crops and even garden flowers. It helps me keep track of my crop rotations from year to  year. It's like a farmer's journal--all rolled up in one easy format. 

It's helped me dream as the snow flies outside. And to send in my seed order. So now I'm dreaming of setting up the "Germination Station" in the basement--as I grow my own tomatoes, peppers and broccoli from seed. No more late sowings for me! I'm going to be right on time this year because I'm growing this garden--from start to finish. 

It will be something new for us--using only organic seeds, with some heirloom varieties thrown in. Maybe I'll start being a seed-saver too! It's gardening all the way from now on! And someday this whole backyard will be transformed into our little farm, our Garden of Eatin'! I can hardly wait!