Harvests

The lettuce I sowed in my kitchen windowsill in January is now being harvested there, and yum! On Tuesday I had the foresight (snow being correctly predicted for Wednesday) to harvest lots of carrots, which I am now cleaning and eating, and to cover my Chinese cabbage cold frame with plastic, so we did indeed have fresh stir-fry for dinner Friday. I also planted out some of the smaller January lettuce seedlings into the other cold frame and they look happy there now. It's a good time to sow lettuce seeds either in the cold frame or under floating cover for an April harvest, so I did that too. For many years before I had cold frames I sowed lettuce seeds in January or February under floating cover for successful April harvests.

Ah! The peaches. Jerry wrote that I won't have mold disaster this summer if I spray them this month with either sulfur or copper spray. Skeptical, I checked with the Organic Consumer's Association, and they recommend these and say they are organic. Alas, I don't see either in the Garden's Alive catalog. Does anyone know where one can buy them either around here or from a catalog?

[2/18 comment: Helen pointed out Soap Shield "liquid copper fungicide" from Gardens Alive is available at http://www.gardensalive.com/product.asp?pn=8066 I phoned 513-354-1482 this morning and ordered a pint of #8066 for $13.95. It claims to do all the things for fruit trees that my peaches need. We'll see if I get a peach harvest this summer!]

My pruning and spraying was coming along nicely until Wednesday's storm. Maybe I can do a bit more later today while wading in the snow. We'll see. We usually have more snow-free days in February for happier pruning.

I had an unprecedented event this week, a common occurrence for a gardener. My first full-sized daffodil appeared to be about to bloom, but only the top half was there when it did! It has only the tree top petals, and the cup looks as if someone cut off the bottom half with a razor. I'm innocent. Has anyone else seen anything like this? What causes it? Life is mysterious.

Pat