So far our growing season is being interesting, with 80 degree weather followed by a couple of hard frosts, some dry weather that had us in a minor drought period, but so far not enough rain that our gardens have had to learn to do the backstroke (but enough to keep them happy).

With the cool, dry weather, some plants (ex peas, even though they are a cool weather crop) haven’t grown as quickly as expected, but greens and green onions have been very happy, and are thriving. Sweet potatoes and white potatoes are in, corn and beans planted, others will be in shortly.

With greens doing well right now, gardeners have started canning and freezing them for use later in the year. They are also enjoying them and the green onions as a daily part of their dinner menus, though we are going to have to cover heart healthy ways of fixing them next month, as a couple of gardeners have posted about sauteing their green onions with bacon grease- tasty, but not exactly healthy.

We’ve been handing out tomato, cabbage, and pepper plants as those can be difficult to start for gardeners, though anyone wanting to start their own is given the seeds to do so. One of our gardeners has his own green house, and started his tomatoes and peppers in early January. He had them in the ground in early April, and they seem to be doing well despite the couple of frosts we had; suspect part of it is that that sometimes the hollers can act as a buffer against frost.

We’ve covered planning gardens, planting gardens, and maintaining gardens in our workshops, so our gardeners should be well prepared for a successful gardening season; they are definitely excited about their gardens and growing their own food. So, here’s hoping for a successful gardening season, happy gardeners, and lots of tasty produce preserved for use over the winter (food preservation is an upcoming workshop).