Spring has Sprung! -- Kathleen Powers, Pine Mountain

Garlic

      According to the calendar spring has arrived in the U.S., though these past few weeks have made it seem a bit like we fast forwarded to summer here in Kentucky. With temperatures in the 70’s and 80’s these past few weeks, the wildflowers have begun to bloom, trees are budding, and to our great delight, vegetables are growing!

       In our community garden at PMSS there are 3 beautiful beds of garlic that seem to grow several inches each week, a box of mint and lemon balm has resurfaced and is already spreading like crazy, and several cilantro plants have come up from previous years’ planting. We were also astounded to find that our bed of kale, which we thought had finally succumbed to the cold in early January, has begun to grow again and given another week we will be eating fresh kale once again!

I'm sorry I can't get this picture to rotate,
 but you get the idea, Lemon Balm and Mint!

         We have been getting all kinds of supplies for our Grow Appalachia participants over the previous 2 weeks, including more seeds, broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower plants, 1600lbs of seed potato and lots of fertilizer. On Tuesday we got our new rotary plow attachment successfully put on to the Grillo and we are excited to see how it works compared to the tiller. Our participants seem quite excited as well and have been calling everyday to put their name in the queue to have their gardens plowed morning, noon, and night (it's gonna be a busy couple weeks here!).

       The Pine Mountain seed swap which was held last Saturday was a huge success; about 60 people attended the event. Bill Best of Sustainable Mountain agriculture and Frank Barnett, a Kentucky seed guru, gave presentations about seed saving and different gardening techniques after which everyone had the opportunity to trade, buy, sell, and learn about many different types of heirloom seeds.It's great to see so many new faces, and so many people interested in preserving the heritage of Kentucky through seed saving and gardening!
       I’m not sure that anyone knows quite what this early summer-like weather means for the official summer that is yet to come or the growing season, but I must say that I have really been enjoying the sunshine and open window weather!