I have seen the plants and habitats of eight states since my last post. Everything from the desert Southwest of Arizona and New Mexico; the mountains and evergreens of those states and Colorado; the plains of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas; the rolling hills, hardwood forests, and farm fields of Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois. For someone who is fascinated with the land and its plants both drives cross-country were times to observe and marvel at the flora and scenery - even though some of it was vastly flat and pretty monotonous. The ability to see ten to twenty miles flat ahead is just amazing. I also experienced all the weather those states had to offer, snow, dust storms, gale force winds, black ice, torrential rain in three states, and sunny blue skies.
As a result I have not had time to do much with gardening except to start paper whites three weeks ago and have them blooming for Christmas now. I even started another set this morning and hope to have them for after the holidays when I will be trying to wake up the amaryllis that are in the basement crawlspace.
Wow, I see that Johnny's is advertising pelleted onion and parsnip seed. I like the idea of onions in pellets but parsnip seems not to be practical since over seeding is usually necessary to get decent germination and the need for thinning is a fact for the home gardener. probably the commercial growers are where this product is aimed. Johnny's does supply to farmer's market growers, and they are into to production.
However, last spring I was not at home in time to plant parsnips so this is the first year in a long time that I will not have any for harvest at the end of the year - sadly. I will miss that harvest because cold weather makes parsnips a fantastic root vegetable.
Happy Gardening
