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Penelope left a comment for Florence May 1

Ian left a comment for Florence Apr 24

Florence left a comment for Ian Apr 24

Penelope left a comment for Florence Apr 17

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Ian left a comment for Florence Apr 8

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Where do you live and garden?: In the mountains of south central Idaho

How long have you been growing food?: forever!

About Me:: I am a historical researcher with my own business and live in a cordwood home we built in 1979. It is a high altitude mountain area with a short growing season and a farmer's market that requires growers to travel 70 miles to deliver their produce. Local food is limited and expensive. On a recent trip to India I was impressed with the availability of locally grown food on every street corner. One of my fondest memories is "cauiflower day" when we saw truckloads of fresh cauliflowers being delivered to the local markets. The nice thing is that our grown daughters also care about good food. One is a vegetarian (and her husband is the cook). The other is always trying new healthy recipes for her family.

Favorite foods:: All vegetables (except Brussels sprouts). Sadly, my husband does not like legumes in any way, shape, or form (except split pea soup.) Chile, white bean soup, lentil soup, and baked beans are some of my favorites.

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At 10:23am on May 1st, 2008, Penelope said…: It's still nowing and blowing. It's crazy.

What';s the tree removal cost if I may ask?

At 8:34am on May 1st, 2008, Penelope said…: Is it snowing in Bellevue? We have 3 inches and it's still coming down. What a weird May Day. The flowers are buried.

At 3:39pm on April 24th, 2008, Ian said…: Hi Florence, Thanks for another lovely message. I love coming on here and finding a message from you, they make such great reading.

Daffodils in Europe, espescially in Wales, where I lived before moving to France are traditionally for St David's Day - March 1st. We had daffodils out in the garden a little before that and this weekend I'm planning to cut the leaves back - six weeks after the end of flowering!
But anywhere in the world, the daffodil signifies the arrival of spring so look ahead and put that long hard winter behind you and start to imagine the new growth you'll soon be enjoying.

Our last frost was several weeks back and now I have quite a few things growing in the garden - strawberries in flower, I noticed a few flowers on my peas today, my early lettuce is ready to start picking and I shall harvest a few leaves from it tomorrow. The early lettuce is growing in a container but I also have a few plants in the ground which are a couple of weeks behind those.

MY potatoes are up and I shall need to start hoeing them up soon. As this is my first year I shall probably cover them with compost rather than hoe up - It'll be good for the bed. I also have wild leek going to seed and onion and garlic gaining girth every day.

Pity about the rhubarb!! hang on to it and I can bring it back when I visit the US next! Maybe next year or the following one.

The geraniums generally survived, we lost just about 3 plants but we had about 30. I grow them to put around the terrace of our holiday apartment which we rent out in the summer. If you go to the website you can see a picture of the entrance - probably with the geraniums in place. This is the first year I have over wintered them - of the 50 plants I seem to still have about 25 to 30, ready for this year.

Gardening season is in full swing here, but problems with my foot have put me behind with work on the apartment so I'm juggling gardening and house maintenance.

I spent all morning painting wood preservative under a timber ceiling and then after lunch spent several hours weeding. The weather here has been wet and sunny so things are growing like crazy. I read somewhere that greenhouse gases mean that plants will grow faster and stronger!

I haven't had eggs and bacon and english muffins for breakfast since I was over in Maine at the new year! I'll have to mention it to Sylvia! :-)

I posted a couple of pictures of garlic and onions but I'm having problems with the camera - maybe it's time to buy a better one.

All the best and enjoy your garden.

Ian

At 8:45am on April 17th, 2008, Penelope said…: When is this dinner? I'm flattered that you want to wear my weaving. I know you have some great "native" earrings, etc., that will go nicely with it too. You'll have fun.

Sadly, Gus destroyed your sculpture in one fell swoop yesterday. We tried to get it back in shape, but failed. Nothing survives a 3 year old, it seems. So, we ate rootbeer floats and filled up squirt guns and adjourned to the garden.

My snowpeas are up, and some of the radishes and spinach, but it's still pretty cold at night.

At 10:03am on April 9th, 2008, Penelope said…: Hi. I see you've been back on line. It's fun to read about what other gardeners are up to. yesterday was Edward's birthday. I baked a cake - heavy chocolate with cream cheese frosting - and we drank some sparkling wine. Katie and kids came down too. Today Alex will be with me in the afternoon. I thought we'd grind some wheat that Jim sent down with the kids, along with my old "hippie" grain grinder and make some bread. Something a 6 year old might think is fun. If all goes well, we can eat the bread for breakfast when you're here.

At 2:11pm on April 8th, 2008, Ian said…: Hi Florence,

Thanks for your wonderfully, newsy, message. Great that you'll be seeing Penelope, make sure to give her my regards. The one thing I miss about this site is that being here in France I don't get to meet any members. The few who are on here from France aren't too active so I haven't been able to strike up a friendship with anyone local.

The sand dune at Pyla is right on the beach, the winds leave the coast of Maine and blow across and then pick up the sand and dump it on top of the dune - at least, it works something like that. At 350 feet it's a bit lower than yours but is still the highest in Europe. Bruneau sounds a great place to camp with your grandsons, just take a hat to keep the heat out!

I understand travelling 50 miles in a snow storm. When I came to the US for Christmas, we arrived in Boston and drove to Camden, Maine in a fierce blizzard. It took us nearly 6 1/2 hours. Still the daffodils and tulips sticking their heads up is a good sign and spring will soon be with you.

I'm afraid in my little veg plot I have chosen everything that is easy as this is really my first year. I have had some success but lots of failures. I seem to be able to drown seedlings without any effort and they just rot away! My real problem is that I'm still too impatient wanting to get things out in the ground. We had a late frost night before yesterday and I had left some geraniums out - they are going to need a lot of tlc if they are to recover. On the other hand I do have potatoes, onions, garlic, cabbage, lettuce and peas all braving the cold and there are some radish and spring onions in the ground, which will appear in a day or so.

I cut my first rhubarrb this year over the weekend, We had friends for Sunday lunch and I made a rhubarb and plum crumble. The plums were last year's crop from the freezer and the rhubarb was cut Sunday morning. It was delicious with only a small portion left - which I have just eaten for my dinner!!!!

I'm glad you enjoy the photos. The garden is beginning to come to life now as many of the fruit trees blossom and flowers and shrubs burst forth. The first flush of spring has now passed with our daffodils all gone and the forsythia pushing out leves where the blossom was.

Enjoy the Poetry Ferstival and catching up with Penelope. She has been keeping me up to speed on the weather in Idaho - I'm quite glad I live here! Maybe you'll be able to take in France on one of your adventures. I'd love to meet with you.

Ian

At 11:15am on April 7th, 2008, Florence said…: Hi Ian, I enjoyed your photographs. I have a much better perspective of what your property looks like now. I can't believe you have fruit trees blooming and such a good farmer's market this time of year. Ours probably won't open until late May or June.

I never imagined France would have sand dunes. We live about 150 miles north of the Bruneau Sand Dunes State Park (they have a web site) and what is considered the "tallest single-structured sand dune in North America (470 ft)." I haven't been there for a long time, but I'm thinking it would be a fun place to camp with the grandsons for a few days this summer -- although it gets pretty hot that time of year.

Since I last wrote, we spent spring break in Tucson with our eldest daughter and family. It was a wonderful 85 degrees. The wildflowers were in bloom. We even went swimming. When we arrived back in Idaho, a spring snowstorm was in process and we had to drive for about fifty miles in it from the airport. I suppose Penelope told you that we are still having occasional snow showers here. At least our snow is slowly melting back and I even have daffodils and tulips sticking their heads out of the ground. A little bit of hope.
I also ordered seeds, but decided to give up on broccoli, onions (except Egyptian), pototoes (they take up too much space and I can buy organic at a good price), radishes (we pick a few and the rest go to waste), and other vegetables that don't yield enough to qualify for taking up space. We get great asparagus which takes little fuss, and all the greens are well suited to our short growing season. Rhubarb, carrots, beets, peas, beans, bok choi, and such are productive. I'll put a few tomatoes in our makeshift green house.

We'll be seeing Penelope next week for the annual poetry festival in Pocatello. I'm really looking forward to it as I haven't seen her since last fall.

Enjoy your garden, Florence

At 9:47am on April 7th, 2008, Pam said…: Hi Florence, thanks for the comment! I will look into freezing, it does sound a lot easier than canning.

At 1:44pm on March 13th, 2008, Ian said…: Hi Florence, I must admit that we were pretty lucky at the museum. Although the museum was multidiscipline, most of the disciplines existed in separate buildings. We had about 10 sites. This meant we had the broadness of a multidiscipline orgabisation whilst also having the specialisms of a dedicated museum. It was a pretty good museum, and of course, because it was a national then entry was free as well giving us a huge footfall.
Your American Indian Tribe project sounds very interesting. That sort of indigenous research simply doesn't exist in Europe.
I think I would prefer to scavenge if I could. There are some pretty good sources for things around here although increasingly it is all being farmed. Our own hedgerow has extensive numbers of wild plums which fruit prolifically in the summer. In fact, I had some with my dinner last night, from the freezer. They were still delicious.
The five acres keep me fairly busy, although the work involved in building the apartment we let for holidays is still taking up much time. I am due to finish that work this month or next and then I have a swimming pool to build - also for the holiday lets.
The coast (Atlantic) is about a 2 hour drive. We went there a couple of weeks ago for the day with some friends who were over from the UK. There is a sand dune there which is the highest in Europe, standing at about 500 feet. There are a couple of photos of it on my photos.
Because of all the work on the buildings we have been doing, the garden has taken a back seat until this year. So, not harvesting anything at the moment but am planting ready for later in the year. This week I have planted some onions, garlic, potatoes and cabbage. I also have peas and beans coming on and some lettuce plants waiting to go in. The first tulip is just about ready to bloom, and one of our hedges has turned white overnight. I think it's hawthorn but I'm not sure. I've also got quince in flower, the nectarine is in blossom, and I think I saw some cherry blossom today. The plums are not far away from blossoming either.
Bonne journee
Ian

At 4:45pm on March 9th, 2008, Ian said…: Hi Florence,
Did you know I used to work for a National Museum in the UK. We had about 10 sites and I was the Technical Manager. My role was responsible for all public displays. It was quite a challenging job, but oh so rewarding. We were a multi discipline museum and my role involved me with all the departments. Art, Archaeology, Geology, Biodiversity, Industry to name just the major ones.
You are so lucky getting Seville oranges. I have always wanted to make marmalade using seville oranges but have never managed to get any.
You asked where I farm. It's no longer a farm, I have an old farmhouse and about 5 acres, about 2 acres of garden and 2 fields making up the rest. The two fields are managed for me by an old local farmer - He's 84 this year and still farming. Someone on here asked me if he was an organic farmer and I replied yes - but he wouldn't recognise himself as one. I once asked him about chemical fertilisers and he replied by asking me why I needed to spend so much money on something that could be done just as well by nature?
Our home is south of Bergerac, a wine growing region to the East of Bordeaux. It is in the Dordogne Valley which is very popular with tourists.
If your summer plans of what's important include a trip to Europe then please come and visit us.
In my garden, I planted potatoes today.

Bonne journee
Ian