01.18.08
January Sun
January in the Pacific Northwest brings a break from the wet, misty rain of December. January also brings cold days and crisp clear nights and gives us gardeners the push to get outside and prune our dormant shrubs and trees. It is difficult to resist being drawn in with all these seed and plant catalogs I’ve been receiving. I set them aside and review my garden plans with plant listings that have been gleaned over 18 years of gardening in our area. I have kept semi-accurate records of what has worked for me over the years. My favorite varieties of vegetables to be specific. We live is a unique climate and our home is located in a subclimate that allows me to plant earlier and harvest longer than the majority of gardeners on the coast.
As I sit at the dining room table this morning I am reading Tasha Tudor’s Garden. This book chronicles a year in Tasha’s Garden. If you’re unfamiliar with Tasha Tudor, I encourage you to get your hands on the VHS (they really need to copy this to a DVD) called Take Joy - The Magical World of Tasha Tudor. She is an inspiration to me. She has spent her life in a slower pace in Vermont. She currently lives on property adjacent to one of her children. In fact her son hand made her home. He used no modern power tools. He hand cut all the timber and whittled the plugs and didn’t use nails to secure the home together. I would love to see it.
Tasha always has something from her garden in her home, even in the dead of a Vermont winter. Yesterday as I walked out to gather the eggs from my small flock of laying hens I looked at my dead, brown garden and wondered if there was anything I could bring into the house to brighten up my table. I found some drying hydrangea blossoms and a handful of lavender that had survived the freezes in the greenhouse. When looking down on the hydrangea blossoms you can see they have turned from pink to purple but the amazing surprise was when I turned them over to shake off spiders and dust. 
The underside of the blossoms were a bright chartreuse green. I arranged them in the wire basket the DS gave us at Christmas. While poking the lavender into the hydrangeas many of the dried lavender blossoms fell off and the aroma filled the room. I let them lay on the beautifully handwoven table runner I purchased from Sally.
So here I sit in the morning sun. Dreaming of my garden, with the smell of lavender, the taste of breakfast blend coffee and the satisfying flavor of pumpkin muffins made from my home grown pumpkins.
Enjoy your day.