We have been working in the garden and visiting some nurseries the past couple of days. So many things are in bloom now, and we have lots of purples...irises, columbine, bachelor buttons, verbena, petunias.
We also have lots of voles. Those little #$%^^s took out 3 newly planted plants within a day. We are treating the beds with a castor oil product, but I think we need a truck load of it. I am going to buy a gallon of castor oil and soak some of our fish food in it and spread that around. If you know of a solution that works (other than cats and dogs.....Rusty got toxoplasmosis from some kind of rodent or bird last year), please let me know!
This lovely iris is poking it's head out of the mint. We have loads of apple mint and spearmint. It makes wonderful tea, so if you are a mint tea fan, I am more than happy to pick enough to keep you going for a while.
We are also still harvesting lettuce, spinach, parsley, chard, kale and mustard from our winter garden. Several are bolting and going to seed, which we will save. The asparagus are popping up now too, and they are delicious. Hopefully those damned voles left a few of the crowns alone last year so that we have a good crop!
We are ordering seeds today from a new company, Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, www.rareseeds.com. Hopefully it will be a somewhat wet summer this year, and that the vegetables will be bountiful. Wes has a lot of tomato and pepper plants ready, that he started on the sunporch earlier this year. We grow only heirloom varieties and using organic methods.
I love this time of the year. It is such a treat to be outdoors (minus the pollen!). I should be working, I have 6 more shows out of town, starting in June at Blowing Rock's Art in the Park. This is more than I have ever done, but we are looking forward to them.
This is also Jugtown Pottery's 90th year celebration of the stamp (though the pottery was underway closer to 100 years ago, selling and promoting the craft in NY at the tea room in 1918!). There are a lot of special pieces being made and there will be a special exhibit at Jugtown on April 21 for the Spring Kiln Opening. I hope you will come down and learn about the history of Jugtown while perusing all the beautiful new pieces, and there are some amazing pieces. Pam will be posting more on their webpage www.jugtownware.com and on Jugtown's facebook page. I'll share it on my Facebook page as well.
Well here comes the sun....and I have a lot of pots that need planting out there!
