Most of our windows are north facing, which is good for not heating up the house in the summer, but not so good for growing green onions in the winter. So to boost the light level, I purchased some LED grow lights strips and installed them under my cupboard in the kitchen.
I put a new batch of roots in the test tubes and they like the new light! The picture shows about a week of growth. Now the previous batch made it through three harvests before petering out, we’ll see if these keep going.
Not that it has been warm here, but my paperwhites (Narcissus) bloomed outside on Christmas day.
And just to balance, the dandelions are also blooming.
I sigh because I spent almost four hours blowing all the leaves around the house into a big pile out past the fence, and although the pile is really big, pictures do it no justice. I’m pretty sure at least five children (maybe even adults) could hide in that pile, but in the picture it just looks like the lay of the land. Oh well. I know the work that went into shifting all those leaves. As an aside, I blew all of last years leaves into the same area, and this is one of the ways the water runs when it rains. Almost all the leaves were washed down by the spring rains. Neat. Natural recycling.
I moved some pots and found a slimy little ball that I am pretty sure is a hibernating slug. First time for everything. I did not replace the protective pot. One less slug in my herb garden is not a bad thing.
I have one pea vine that not only survived whatever killed off (or ate) the other vines, but also survived our heavy frost. And it provided two pods! We of course ate the peas out straight away. They were well received by my offspring. I will try planting more again in the spring.
Critters and Craft 