Ground is frozen solid in Tacoma, WA.
Darned Global Warming!
5 Great Garden Books Perfect For Winter (Or Anytime) Reading
Looking for a few great garden books to add to your reading list this winter?
Wintertime is the perfect time for dreaming and planning next year’s garden and flowerbeds. And nothing can help spur on your creativity more than reading up on all kinds of wonderful gardening topics!
One thing is for sure, the long winter months can be tough to handle for gardeners. Not only do the hours of sunlight dwindle, the colder temperatures make it nearly impossible for growing anything outdoors. Making matters worse, except for a few splashes of color from an evergreen here and there, the great outdoors can seem bare, stark, lonely and colorless.
But one thing winter does do is give a gardener a bit of resting time. After all, the body needs a break from all of those planting, watering, weeding and harvesting chores. And while your rest up, a good garden book or two can help pass the time until spring arrives.
Even better, it can fill your mind with all kinds of great gardening ideas for next year! With that in mind, today’s article features five wonderful garden books that can accommodate a wide range of garden interests. We have included a brief overview of each below:
The Chef’s Garden – A Modern Guide To Common & Unusual Vegetables – With Recipes
In Bloom: Growing, Harvesting, and Arranging Homegrown Flowers All Year Round
Vegetables Love Flowers: Companion Planting for Beauty and Bounty
The Family Garden Plan: Grow a Year’s Worth of Sustainable and Healthy Food
The Old Farmer’s Almanac Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook
Reviews at link:
https://thisismygarden.com/2022/11/great-garden-books/
I started looking at my seeds today.
Getting antsy about starting some for the spring. I want to start my onions early and get them a decent size before transplanting and I want to start some lavender and rosemary which both take a long time to germinate.
Fun reading and as applicable today as it was back then.
Cutting back roses this week, hard to do b/c some are still blooming, we've had beautiful, 65 degree weather but need rain.
Gingersnap rose surrounded by cyclamen:
Waiting for warmer weather - stole the cat's bed.
Love these threads! Especially since my boss told me this week I can work full time from my residence, and work in the Detroit office. I’ve split time between Detroit and Memphis for the last two years and I have been unable to plant a garden for those two years.
As I sit here with no power as the DTE workers try and mend the downed lines from last night’s wet / heavy snow I look upon my garden while I grill up some Brat’s.
It’s amazing how peaceful the Winter is. The deer walking around. The occasional branch cracking form the weight of the wet snow.
Picked up some Livingston Seeds at ACE Hardware last night in anticipation of planting over Memorial Day weekend.👍
Chilly greetings and salutations from Salem, Virginia :)
I have a praise report related to my incredibly unkempt garden.
I haven had an extra pair of closed shoes, boots, or sneakers that I can sacrifice in the clay mud here and I’ve been fretting about getting into the garden to clean up the mess I’ve made with an overrun compost pile and shredded cardboard.
Last night I made a walmart run and the voice in my head told me to go check the shoe department and BAM! there was ONE pair of sneakers on clearance for 10 bucks.
They are mesh uppers and not waterproof but they’re good enough.
Also, they are 2 sizes too big but that’s great because I won’t wear them anywhere else so I won’t feel bad about ruining a brand new pair of sneakers.
God is good.
Now to wait for a turn in the weather. :D
24 Degrees here in southern Ohio and windy. I just fed my bird buddies. They know my pee-dee-dee call by now, lol.
I thought you all might enjoy this little trick. Put rice in a sock, knot it tight, and put it in a microwave for 2 minutes. You can put some Lavender or other herb in there if you like. It makes a great heating pad and last for 20 minutes or so and you can re-use it.
When I’m cold, I found the best way to warm up for a couple of days is to eat a steak. I think it has something to do with iron in your blood.
Wind and Freezing Rain here in New England. Yuck.
Dire and unhappy report. The garden room where some standard veggies were being attempted under artificial light has been negatively affected by the current cold snap.
We are at -37* outdoors, and the contents of the two closets appear to have been hit by serious frost. The watering can that sits in the room itself just outside the closets is frozen. Solid. The aerated fertilizer water is frozen. Solid.
My car wouldn’t start this morning because it was (you guessed it) frozen. Barely got the SUV started, going to plug in the block heater in a bit.
It’s bloody COLD!
Weather talking heads predicting “OMG THE COLDEST WEATHER OKLAHOMA HAS SEEN IN THREE YEARS !!!!!!!” Gee, do those people know it’s . . . January? Ya know, WINTER? Heh.
As for reading, I plan to sit by the wood-burning stove (with the parrot) and re-read one of my favorite Tom Clancy books.
Got to the new house Thursday night. Left an hour later than I wanted so it got dark. Unfortunately, about 20-30 minutes away, there was a 3-car bad smash-up that had the main road totally closed. As we were waved off to the right by the sheriff’s dept., I had no idea where to go & no place to pull over & get GPS going. I took a gamble the car in front was a local & followed. We were on some tiny lanes, up/down & around curves & finally got back to a place I recognized. Mom & I drank an entire bottle of Peach Bellini when we got to the house!
My project today has been to get motion detectors on the back door & driveway - tired of people (even if we know them) sneaking up on us. The back door one is working, but we had a snow squall the last hour that kept me inside. It just quit so I can go out & get #2 in place.
The mountains are SO beautiful- the cloud shadows, ever-changing angles of light as the sun rises & sets, the ‘light’ in general, keeps the views interesting.
has anyone heard from tubebender?....I hope he’s okay ....loved his pics.
I can only say one thing about the past week’s weather here in Central Missouri - IT SUCKS!
Spent a lot of time over the weekend keeping horse water open. Lost track of how many times I had to thaw the fountain. Air line to the pond bubbler froze up. Nothing I can do with that but wait for the weather to warm up enough to thaw the line.
Confirmed the inverter module in my portable generator is why it’s not working. Naturally the part is made of unobtanium so I’m going to have to replace the whole thing. Then when I went to put it back down on the floor the shop crane threw a fit and blew hydraulic oil all over me and the shop floor and the boat and the Kubota and the golf cart. I guess the oil was so thick due to the cold temps that it couldn’t move through the valving fast enough so it blasted out the filler plug opening in the lift cylinder.
Then this morning I got word that one of my best friends fell over dead yesterday evening.
To say it’s been a crappy week would be an understatement.