Broccoli raab flower and seed pods this morning
On Sunday these flowers were heavy with honeybees. Toward winter’s beginning I usually let the few things left in the veg garden go to flower if they wish. The native flowers (asters, mainly) are long gone, so the veg garden’s calendula, rapini and snapdragons were the only blooms the pollinators could find. With those 70* days last week, I am sure more than a few pollinators were out doing a last forage. I sure was!
Our snowfall was fairly light yesterday, only enough to hide the grass completely. I was hoping for more. Today it’s bright and sunny and cold. I believe I love snow so much because of its ability to magnify the sun’s feeble winter output: there are a lot more reflective surfaces if snow clings to everything. Even if we didn’t get dumped on, seeing what’s out there makes me happy, makes me want to bake bread and drink tea. It makes me think it’s not the end of the garden season, it’s the beginning of these beautiful light-filled indoor days.
One has to look at the upside of spending life inside, no?
Glad you came to visit!
Got something to say? Email me at fastweedpuller at gmail dot com.
fast grow the weeds 
just discovered your blog and love it. i sometimes curse weeds and sometimes cherish them on 5 acres in north carolina… thanks for writing and i’m adding you to my blogroll!
I’m with you. Even though I love being outside working in the garden, there are many things I enjoy doing inside and I like being forced to stay in. Here in Southern California we started getting into fall, then a heatwave came along and we’ve got 90 degrees. Darn!
Makes me want to bake bread and drink tea indeed! In the winter, I’d like not to have a job, so I can stay home and do homey things. But alas, to work I must go. I’d feel the same way the rest of the yearthough too. I could find an entire day’s worth of work to do if I could only stay home, any time of the year!
I am quietly wishing for many snowy days this year. We have so many snowfalls here that barely cover the grass; I’m wishing for real snowfalls like my New Jersey kids have.
My dream is that a snowstorm hits while I’m visiting them, and I get blizzarded (new verb) in for an extended stay. That may not be their dream, however.
I left a buch of broccoli go to seed, hoping to save some of the seeds, and use the extra ones for winter sprouts, but the frost damaged the seeds to be. But the upside was the dozens of bees gathering heavy pollen baskets from these prolific late flowers. There was nothing else producing pollen this late in our garden or in our fields, so I will make this a practice from here on. If I get an earlier start on my broccoli, I should get some seeds for my effort as well.
I am looking forward to the snow as well. Especially after a month of mud and frozen mud.
Hello Milkweed! I love what you and Christopher have been able to do…how exciting. I really love that more and more folks are either coming out of the woodwork and blogging about this kind of life or are inspired to change their lives and start over, aching muscles and all. It’s great and it gives me a lot of hope. A LOT more hope than I had when I started blogging 3 years ago, really!
Dang, Jeri, excepting 90* weather, when would you ever be forced to be inside in SoCal? I went camping once in December in a state park outside of Yuma; the locals thought I was off my nut but hey 50* is shorts weather for a Minneapolitan. But yes, like I said, the house is only truly clean and organized when it’s not gardening season around here. Heck the laundry even gets put away.
Jules believe me it’s tough if you have to WORK at home. The only thing it really helps is dinner gets on the table a bit earlier if I am not commuting, but otherwise there are major distractions. But I do like spending lunch hour doing gardening things! Retirement does sound kind of dreamy though don’t you think?
Pamela, in that case I wish you blizzards when you hit NJ!
Freija, so it’s been muddy up by you too? It is something of a welcome relief when the ground actually freezes solid, you know? As it is I tend to have mud on all my pant cuffs no matter what I do. I travel with a rag in the car to remove the mud that inevitably got on my shoes from the 30 paces from the back door to the car. Sigh. But yeah, letting the brassicas go to flower (and likewise if they live through the winter I let them also bloom, especially kales) the bees certainly are happy. Plus as you mentioned the blooms are good to eat too! Kale flowers are really great, especially if you get them in the pre-yellow flower stage, like broccoli. Yum.