A Nice Winter Day

The shot above is from the Japanese garden today. Little Jerry and I toured the gardens looking for more pruning projects. We had 1-2" of wet snow last night but I think we missed the bulk of the storm that stayed south of us. The gardens looked beautiful but I really got a feeling for the browsing damage that has occurred thus far this winter. The deer have certainly been nibbling and have really targeted the yews (Taxus sp.) this year (see below) after we excluded them from our Eastern arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis) with fencing. We had another nice volunteer turnout today with Marianne coming in to help finalize our seeds for the growers. We'll finish our seed work this Wednesday and everything will go out to the growers this week. Janice was here working on myriad tasks related to the spring plant sale, reference library, volunteer activities, etc. Jerry and Bill worked out in the gardens while Larry worked on projects at the Horticulture Center. Dave, Vern, Bob A. and Jim continue to work on the large arbor structure and are trying to finalize their large arch. Terry, Marv, Dick H., Maury and Chuck were all in too. Gary was here working on setting up our new printer and others came and went thru the day. Feels like spring is just around the corner! Are you perusing your seed catalogs and thinking about growing some of your own food? "Edible Gardening" has seen a huge increase over the past couple of years as has the awareness of where our food actually comes from. When I do talks on ornamental edibles, I target some of the main reasons for taking the plunge in to growing more of your own food. Convenience, cost savings and safety issues are just some of the reasons. Where does our food really come from and what inputs were involved iwth its production, processing, shipping and presentation? See below for some other interesting factsThe Garden Writers Association Foundation (GWAF) conducted a survey last year regarding vegetable gardening trends. They determined that the trends will continue and increase in 2010 and indicated that over 7.7 million households were new to edible gardening in 2009. The primary reason for becoming engaged in this activity was to supplement the household food supply. Overall, over 41 million households grew a vegetable garden in 2009. What a great trend and opportunity to address the "disconnect" with our children that think vegetables just come from a store in a can or bag. See below for some other examples of deer damage. This is not at RBG but in Janesville. It's sure not hard to tell their "eating range" although more snow will equal more reach!