Dreary Mid February. Rhubarb emerging. Pruned roses. Helleborus.

Ning likes to plant garlic cloves close together and shallow, and let the leaves grow to about 6 inches. He harvests the leaves to use as a vegetable. The cloves can support several crops of leaves. The Chinese word for this is "suan miao" which means "garlic sprouts".

Tamora is one mean rose - the thorniest in the garden. I sustained multiple lacerations while pruning this shrub.

According to Celtic legend, Tamara was a protective goddess of the river Tamar. She must have been a spiteful goddess.

According to Wikipedia, Tamara also translates to Sanskrit as "spice", which does describe the scent.

Spelled differently (with entirely different meaning?) Tamora was Shakespeare's queen of the Goths, who was taken prisoner by the Emperor Titus, Titus had her son killed in sacrifice for victory. In this review, Tamora had "menacing femininity" - she becomes the lover of the next Emperor of Rome, Saturnius, and arranges for a brutal revenge.

It may be too early, but the back rose bed is now pruned. Last year I pruned even earlier, and the buds emerged, then were frosted by a laste frost. However, the buds were emerging anyway, so I don't know if it matters. In a couple of weeks, the surface of the mulch will be cleaned, a layer of compost added, and the bark mulch added. Then it's ready for the year.

This is my favorite rose, for it's color, spicy scent, disease resistance, and rugged persistance.

OK, I cheated. I planted this 3 weeks ago. The other helleborus around the yard have buds but are not blooming yet.

It's nice to have something blooming in the gloom and grime. The slugs dont seem to bother these either, so far. Here is a website devoted to helleborus.

Emerging from the mulch (looking more like the muck currently). See prior entry for rhubarb to see what this looked like last summer. Here is another reference with some rubarb history and traditional medicinal properties (yum, the root - not the leaf stem - was used to induce vomiting).

January 2007 Weather Statistics

I don't know how it happened - this graph suddenly appeared in my Picassa files - after trying for about an hour to put it there and failing!

Total precip = 4.5 inches
High = 53 degrees
Low = 17 degrees.

There were 14 days with low below freezing.
There were no days with high below freezing.

In the veggie garden

Who is this lady? Early 1900s, probably about 1910.

Is Spring on the way?

Puttering.

Today was a chance to putter around the growing greener yard. Nice, chilly late winter morning.

- After debating for a day, I checked the weather-channel predictions, and planted this Hardy Chicago fig. It was grown from a cutting last Winter. Reading the tag, I started the cutting 1/10/06, from a 2-node cutting (similar to the ones that I started about one week ago). I did add some home made compost to the hole, along with eggshells and soil from a more improved part of the garden, mixing with the soil in the hole. It's mulched with some leaves, but later in the Spring I intend to add some more compost plus a top layer of bark mulch. The top bud is pruned off to encourage branching. I hope that the buds havent swelled to a vulnerable point yet. I'll have to watch the predictions and cover it if a hard freeze is anticipated.

- some of the perrenial tops are pruned and chopped for the composter. The yard looks a bit cleaner. There are more that need trimming.

- 3 more bags of Starbucks grounds are added to the tomato bed.

-Lettuce is "winter sown" in an outdoor container. The lettuce seeds are about 1 year old. They should still be viable (according to one site, lettuce seeds can survive 5 years if stored properly); not much lost if they are not. The container is left exposed on the back (southern exposure) deck. Onion seeds, apparently, last only one year. I threw in some bunching onion seeds which, if they grow, great, but since they are from 1995, they may not. Later, I also winter sowed some radishes and spinach, also 1-2 years old.

At last, a day with a little 'life' to balance 'work'. It's been a hard few months, and I worked without a complete day off for the past 2 weeks straight through, so I took the weekend off. No homework done this weekend either.