Susie is starting a vegetable garden at the Fiber Farm! I am excited to be bringing you occasional updates on the garden’s progress, as well as some comments on gardening in general.

Like practically every other venture, gardening can have lots of false starts. False starts and failures are fine—the important thing is to learn from them, try again, and not give up. So I’ll be reporting the failures right along with the successes.

I seem to have failed at my attempt to convince Susie to plant lima beans. I hated lima beans my entire life. Found them absolutely disgusting. I reluctantly planted some in my vegetable garden when my mother requested them. What a revelation! Fresh limas are like an absolutely different food! You don’t see them much—they are a bother to shell, but in my opinion, well worth the trouble. My favorite variety is called Christmas lima; it has an amazing nutty flavor, reminds me of chestnuts. It is really very un-lima.  It is an heirloom bean from the 1800s; many seed companies carry it, including Seed Savers Exchange . Unlike many limas—limas like the south– it will grow to maturity here in Dutchess County, New York. They are extremely vigorous plants and need sturdy support for their vines. I will bring Susie some from my garden this year, and we’ll see what happens next year…

Here is Susie’s garden being tilled by Patrick and some friends:

tilling

Could you have a prettier garden setting?

susies-garden

Christmas limas are beautiful dried:

limas

You can easily find tons of info for beginning vegetable gardeners.  New York Botanical Garden has put together a nifty beginner’s guide, and it isn’t overwhelming:

http://www.nybg.org/edible_garden/beginners_garden.php

Arno contemplates escape. Okay, not a gardening picture, but I couldn’t resist throwing in some animal pictures:

arno1

Erin and friend:

erin-and-friend


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