Robins have arrived at Kents Store, which means it’s time to start thinking about growing some of my cold-weather plants… you know, spinaches and broccoli and some onions and lettuce.
Especially baby spinaches. Then peas for the spring. Then some tomatoes — which I grow extremely well but don’t particularly like — and corn and carrots and watermelons and cantalopes and squashes and cucumbers and peppers and herbs. Then if I’m lucky, more peas for the late summer, harvesting grapes on the grape vines (we have two) and showing the kids how to make raisins… and teaching myself how to make limited amounts of wine.
Heck — if I get really ambitious, I want to try finding some varieties of colonial-era tobacco. All of the ornamental plants will come along in time… roses and marigolds and poppies. There’s some columbine I planted last year that should be coming up as well.
Unfortunately most of the soil here is absolutely terrible for growing much of anything, more than likely a product of centuries of overplanting before farmers simply gave up… which is why Virginia has so many trees nowadays. Old, decaying farms and dusty Virginia clay.
There’s about five acres of young trees on the property that I would love to be able to use for some small degree of planting… but then there’s the cost of clearing it, and maintaining it, and growing anything that would actually make it to market. Then of course, there is the prickly matter of growing anything on it at all, and letting the trees do their own thing. While I may not be an environmentalist by policy, I am one at heart.
Jefferson was right about there being some degree of virtue working the soil.