A Win at Winter Gardening

I went to the Feed Store today. It's my retail therapy. Some women go to the mall, or the shoe store, or Sephora. I go to the old barn by the railroad tracks where they've sold feed- and roasted peanuts- for 100 years. My Dad started taking me there when I was nine. It's my happy place.

That, and the yarn shop. But that's another post entirely.

While doing a bit of online seed shopping recently, I came across a "new" type of broccoli and ordered the seeds. I'd hoped to start them today, but they aren't in yet, so I got impatient and went into town for some coffee and look-see at the Feed Store. Is it too early for broccoli sets? Wasn't sure.

I grow broccoli every spring. Trouble is, the springs here in Texas have been getting so warm so quickly that the broccoli, lettuce, kale, peas, onions... all those cool weather crops... burn to a crisp before we get them out of the ground. So we're all getting smart and adapting to our environment, I suppose you could say: this year, our winter gardens are enormous.

Which is a joke in itself. Winter? Texas?? Cue the belly laughs.

I lay awake last night thinking, if we're all going to garden in the winter now, why doesn't someone put out onion sets like they do in the spring? We have to think differently if we expect different results, after all. So after losing sleep last night over onion sets, I nearly shouted when I turned a corner and saw these tucked between an old shelf and the Feed Store's moaning side gate. Onion sets! For winter! We'll have onions, after all!

For just a moment, I was Laura Ingalls Wilder and onion sets were butter.

 

It's a good thing, too. The onion seeds I started are looking a little... floppy. And this winter, I desperately wanted a win...

Golden, Fading Colors

 

It's a slow one, today is. I scattered grain for the chickens, collected eggs, and then wandered around the place, pulling at dried-up herbs and swatting at tangled webs holding nothing but leaves.

So glad it's autumn now. It's my favorite season. Time for pumpkins and cocoa and raking and spices and golden, fading colors.

Happy fall to you, wherever today finds you.  -Brin