• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Home Garden Joy
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Start Here
    • Seed Starting
    • Composting Basics
    • Vegetable Gardening
    • Growing Fruit
    • Growing Herbs
  • Recipes
    • Canning and Food Preservation
    • Vegetarian Meals
    • Salad Recipes
    • Soup Recipes
    • Dinner Recipes
    • Dessert Recipes
  • Books & Classes
    • Classes
    • Books
    • Books for Christian Herbalists
  • About
    • Advertise
    • Awards and Accolades
    • Privacy Policy

March Musings

March 7, 2008 by Jeanne

It’s a rainy, cold March day after a period of beautiful sunshine and bright 60 degree weather. I’m really enjoying Virginia’s spring – it’s a long, soft spring, unlike the “on/off” of New York weather. In New York, it can go from cold and wet 40 degree weather to 80 and sunny in a matter of just two weeks, and feel like there is no spring. Here, the spring feels soft, long and gentle, like the autumn was. I will like this weather if this is the usual!

I’ve been working like crazy on the perennial garden. It is a huge tract of land between the edge of the woods and the driveway that we left bare. Originally we thought we would plant wildflowers there. I don’t know how it morphed into a perennial garden, but now it has become a formal garden, with paths and walkways and edging. I’ve been collecting rocks from all over the property and using them to edge the driveway and the garden. Over the winter I ordered a ton of plants – peony garden, shade gardens, a hummingbird garden collection, and about two dozens various perennials, including poppies, climbing roses, and many more. I am feeling the pressure as the emails start to come in announcing that the plants are on their way. We picked up two truckloads of horse manure from Arabians Destiny, a wonderful Arabian horse farm here in Virgina, and now I am working that into the soil too, hoping against hope that some of it will break down into this sandy clay soil before the plants arrive. We have to purchase two arbors, one for each entrance into the garden, and a nice bench. I also want to get a solar fountain and more. But all of this is going to have to be one day at a time. I think that my garden is going to be my lifelong project!

I have so many ideas and wishes for this farm….we put in the orchard, and John has started planning the chicken coop. I would love to have this farm producing vegetables, fruit, and chickens for meat and eggs, and perhaps some sheep or goats for meat and fiber. My sister Ann has said that if I raise sheep she will take the wool, as she has always wanted to spin and weave on her own, and knowing her she will use it! I wish I could be outside working on the farm every day. Even as a little girl, I wanted to be outside in the sunshine and fresh air as much as possible. I just love rolling up my sleeves and getting my hands dirty in the garden. My body feels like a truck ran over it from lifting rocks all week, but I’ve got to imagine that this is a better “full body workout” than if I did my videos in front of the TV in the basement. And from my office, the view that is shaping up from the perennial garden is spectacular!

But now back to work….to pay for the solar powered fountain I want to buy too…

Jeanne
Jeanne

Jeanne Grunert is a certified Virginia Master Gardener and the author of several gardening books. Her garden articles, photographs, and interviews have been featured in The Herb Companion, Virginia Gardener, and Cultivate, the magazine of the National Farm Bureau. She is the founder of The Christian Herbalists group and a popular local lecturer on culinary herbs and herbs for health, raised bed gardening, and horticulture therapy.

Tweet
Share
Pin
Share
0 Shares

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Previous Post: « Snowfall
Next Post: Spring is in the air! »

Primary Sidebar

Let’s Connect!

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • YouTube

Featured

logo of the american horticulture society

Home Garden Joy was featured by the American Horticultural Society on #plantchat.

My Books on Amazon

cover of plan and build a raised bed garden

Visit my author page on Amazon to find all of my fiction and gardening books.

Herbal Academy Teachers

Footer

a browned overcooked coconut bar on a blue flowered plate

Recipe Fail – Coconut Bars

Each weekend, I dig out my favorite cookbook – the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, 13th Edition. I flip through the pages, skimming the recipes, checking to see if I have the ingredients to make those that catch my eye. And then, I make the recipe, usually late Sunday afternoon after all the chores are done. It’s…

Read More

peach tree cuttings in a pot on a windowsill

Propagating Peach Trees from Softwood Cuttings

We decided that propagating peach trees from softwood cuttings was the way to go when we couldn’t find the variety we wanted at the store this past week. The best eating peach we’ve ever grown here at Seven Oaks Farm is “Red Haven.” It was recommended by our neighbor, a man whose family has farmed…

Read More

soul in a yellow mug against pine panelling

Made From Scratch Chicken Vegetable Soup Recipe

This is the best made-from-scratch chicken vegetable soup recipe you’ll ever taste. It’s a favorite of my family and I’m betting it will quickly become a favorite of your family’s, too. As part of my ongoing quest to test and taste every recipe in the Fannie Farmer Cookbook 100th Edition, I’ve made the Vegetable Soup…

Read More

A loaf of bread on a plate

Water Bread – Recipe Review

Once you make water bread, you’ll never eat store bought white bread again. In fact, you won’t be able to look at a loaf of “white bread” from the market and consider it bread, in any sense of the word, after you’ve taken a bite of the real thing. Hot. Crunchy crust. Tender, flaky, soft…

Read More

Copyright © 2022 Home Garden Joy on the Foodie Pro Theme