Prime foraging season around these parts is about to begin! I've been watching all week and finally spotted the first usable dandelion greens and stinging nettles starting to poke through. If you're new to foraging, dandelions are probably one of the easiest plants to start with in this area of the country. They don't really have dangerous lookalikes, so as long as you avoid
sprayed or otherwise contaminated areas, just about everyone should be able to find and use them. You can add the leaves as a supplement to any existing salad that you make and if you enjoy the taste, expand from there! Anyone interested in more foraging related content?
Our Brick and Mortar store is mostly back together now (see last month's issue) and we had a soft opening this last weekend. When I wasn't dealing with that fiasco though, most of my time was spent getting this gardening season off to a good start.
In addition to germinating and transplanting
brassicas, tomatoes and newly started peppers into pots, this month began the process of reviving my overwintered peppers. I also accomplished one of my 'permanent' gardening goals for the year and created a dedicated for growing horseradish. After much research, I decided to incorporate this on the north side of my
existing asparagus/strawberry garden as horseradish is a good companion plant for both.
The perpetual garlic garden that I created last year is also aggressively sprouting at this time. This seems to have already grown beyond the space I allocated to it, so I plan to do some more experimentation with different locations with the intention of adding a second spot dedicated to perennial garlic.
Over the last few years, I've slowly been building the basis for an apple orchard in my backyard. I plan on taking that to the next level as I've signed up for a virtual apple grafting workshop that starts in a few weeks. This is offered by SeedSavers exchange and there are a few spots available as
I'm writing this. This workshop consists of ~6 sessions spread out between April and October this year. I plan to increase the number of trees in the orchard by 5 this year and if all goes well, I'll arrange to get scions from other local apple growers next year to start adding variety to my existing, more mature trees.
