Winter Beauty

Somehow bright Midwestern sunshine radiating down in January makes even 15 degrees seem OK. Watching some winter-hardy birds dart and hop, around and under, our bird feeder to obtain badly needed nourishment in the mid-day sunshine is most wonderful. The expense of buying wild bird seed, and the effort of filling a feeder in the winter cold, are more than offset by the enjoyment offered by these fragile creatures of the air! The varieties and colors (even in the dead of winter) are amazing. Cardinal red, Jay blue, Sparrow brown, and Nuthatch grey pop in the bright light, and afford the observer a most pleasant feeling.

What a Difference!

What a difference a couple of months make in our Central Ohio area. Here's proof:

October, 2011
and
Today

January, 2012

I think I'll grab a cup of coffee and read my latest issue of the Ohio Gardener magazine and dream........

The Last Salad of the Year!

It is really going to be hard to have to buy that first bunch of lettuce from the grocery store. I had to take a picture of the last salad from our garden.

It consisted of two kinds of lettuces, Baby Mesclun Lettuces/Cut and Come Again from Renee’s Garden and Buttercrunch from Livingston Seed Co., and a packet of baby spinach seeds (not sure where these were from). In September, we planted three deck planters with lettuce in them and one with the baby spinach .

It was so hot in Central Ohio in August that we put off planting these until September. Well, our weather here has been so unusually warm this Fall and into the first part of January that these cool weather crops did great! We ate lots of salads from these four containers. This January picture will have to be a reminder of that great home grown taste until we plant again in early Spring. Till then…………..