But really, it’s because we have bird feeders.

In the winter, the birds go crazy—like this tufted titmouse—for the black oil sunflower seeds I feed them. With the exception of one high-capacity feeder, I have to fill them daily, or every other day.

We enjoy watching the birds, and our four-year-old is learning to identify some of the regulars. Cardinals are pretty easy.

We have one feeder in the front of the house, and it doesn’t get much action.

This is a pretty accurate shot:

I’ve hung it on one of the plant hooks under the front eave of the porch, hoping that birds would flock to it and we could watch them from our living room. A few finches dart in from the dogwood at sunrise and that’s it. I was hoping they would take cover in the shrubbery below.

Perhaps the type of feeder is more appropriate for finches, yet they aren’t fans of black oil sunflower seeds? This feeder has seen better days. Also, apparently so has the metalwork on our porch.

If you have bird feeders and squirrels, you’ll appreciate this book. No kids necessary.

Do you use bird feeders?

Amaryllis are easy, no nonsense plants that provide plenty of joy on the dullest of days.

I keep mine on a west-facing window sill. This demure pink one bloomed within a month of planting.

I have a second red one from last year that’s recently woken up from a long sleep in the basement. It’s on the south side now, but will join the others on the west window soon.

I’ve also tried growing basil, but have come to realize that no matter how sunny your sunroom is in the winter, it’s not enough. I’ve managed to clip a few leaves, but the plant would really benefit from living under a grow light.

What do you like to grow indoors in the winter?

U.S. Department of Agriculture

You can even drill down to your specific location. This is great if you’re on the edge of a zone and have desperately tried zooming into the old map to figure out where you fall.

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Beware of lots of CAPTCHAS  when you interact with the map. They can get tedious.

No posters are available, but you can download and print all kids of sizes and resolutions for a variety of uses.

Goodbye, old map.

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Do you find yourself getting lost in garden dreams?

Despite the snow and the cold, the dreariness and the lack of daylight, this is when my imagination runs wild.

What will I plant? How can I design the garden? What will I finally do this year?

It’s a time of possibilities. If you find yourself getting lost in the possibilities, just go with it. Relish it. When it’s hot and you’re losing the battle against weeds, the fantasy will be over.

Here are some of my dreams:

• Use a cold frame, which will be invaluable for hardening off seedlings while I’m away during the day and extending the growing period for certain crops.

• Grow with an eye for winter. It’s important that I boost the number of things that can be dried, frozen, and canned.

• More mulch! The best year I ever had was when I piled dried grass clippings on as mulch. My watering and weeding duties were greatly reduced. This year I’ll turn to hay and straw, newspaper, and whatever grass clippings I can gather.

• Grow what we’ll eat. Over the years I’ve figured out what we like to eat, and what ends up in the compost as waste. As much as I feel like I should grow kale, the reality is it won’t get eaten. I’m OK with being real.

• Go vertical! Even though I have a spacious garden, there are some squash and melon plants that I don’t want dominating the garden.

Here in zone 6 I plant my seeds indoors at the end of February. I have a month to finalize my list, go through my seed collection, order new seeds, and organize my garden layout.

Until then, dream on!

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you’re all busy with your winter gardening projects. (Who says gardeners get a break during the winter?)

One thing I love about WordPress is the annual review they give me of my blog every year. Feel free to poke through the stats and see what you all found most interesting. Click here to see the complete report.

New in 2012

This year I’m going to spend time thinking about the direction of The Suburban Farm and what it can become. This is an excellent opportunity to talk about what YOU would like this space to be. What kind of content would you like to see?

• More photos?
• More how-to’s?
• Recipes?
• More specifics about vegetable gardening in urban and suburban spaces?
• What about a social community?

I started this as a space for those of us toiling away in yards and other residential spaces, for those who love the grit of hard work and probably also have to show off those gritty fingers in the office, too.

I would love to hear your thoughts on continuing down this path. Let’s put our heads together!

I keep trying them, and I keep shying away. Their earthy flavor is too strong.

But they are so beautiful! That’s what leads me back every time. Beautiful to behold, hard to swallow.

I came across this gorgeous video recipe for beet cake, and I couldn’t resist.

So I tried it.

Using the beets rolling around in the refrigerator from a CSA haul.

It’s an easy recipe, nothing more than your basic chocolate cake. It took extra time to cook and puree the beets.

And you know what? It didn’t come out that bad. The beet flavor is there, but it’s wrapped in a chocolate cake.

I had enough batter for two nine-inch cakes.

What do you think of beets?

When we bought the house in 2004, the wisteria was just a baby. Nothing more than a puff partially covering the arbor.

One May—I think it was 2006 or 2007—it bloomed for the first time. I couldn’t believe it! The day I saw the flowers budding, I tore across the yard to inspect it. Was it really true? After that, I looked forward to every May for the lavender blossoms and subtle, sweet grape scent in the air.

Soon its gnarled wood stem began pulling the arbor to the ground, and the unruly tuft wound around everything it could grasp.

It became a magical little hideaway. A secret garden. I loved to look up through its leaves and feel like no one could see me hiding in my corner. (But I could see them!)

Even my son knew—early on—there’s something special about hiding under the wisteria.

Maybe we’ll plant one at our new house. Or maybe I’ll keep this one in my memory and give the new plants a fighting chance. Because as much as I love wisteria, it’s a difficult plant to manage.

However, ’round here today it’s SNOWING.

To celebrate the arrival of spring, I planted peas and radishes. Last year I wasn’t happy with how the peas turned out. So this year I decided to overcompensate by planting more than 200 pea seeds. We eat lots of peas in our house, and I’m planning to freeze them. I chose Dakota shelling peas for their high yield and excellence in freezing. Also, at 60 days, they’re on a perfect rotation schedule before the pole beans go in the ground.

In other seed news, I had planned to start seeds this weekend, but when I consulted my handy seed starting chart, I realized I’m about a week early.

Honing my schedule for starting seeds is still a work in progress. Start too early, and you’re stuck with a bunch of leggy seedling that desperately need to be hardened-off and put in the ground, but it’s still too cold. You can start late, and that’s OK. I’d rather be late than kill off everything.

It looks like April 20 will be the magic week for me to start most of my seeds. Tomatoes will be next week. Here in zone 6, I use mid-May as the last frost date (this year I bumped it to May 18). Of course that fluctuates each year. I’ve had great success with mid-May. Some swear by Mother’s Day, but this year it falls on May 8. A little early, don’t you think?

I miss having crocuses.

Skunks are out an about making their presence known. And last night I dodged a road full of peepers. For me, Spring Peepers are it. I know the worst is over when they’re out.

The rain has been heavy for two days, steadily beating away at the snow. I never thought I’d find so much novelty in seeing the ground for the first time in three months.

I’ve heard reports of crocuses, but nothing has appeared in my yard. In fact, I don’t even know if I have crocuses on this new property. If not, they’ll be there next year.

What are your favorite signs of spring?

ca. 2008. One of three generous oaks in our yard.

Every fall we battled the acorns. Two of the seven autumns we lived in the house were actually mast years—back to back. If you’ve never had a mast year for acorns—or anything—you’ll have to trust I’m not being hyperbolic when I describe the deluge of acorns as a carpet. There’s no other accurate way to describe it.

For weeks the acorns rained on us, rocketing through the canopy and pinging off cars and roofs. We all ran for cover. At night we lay in bed and drifted to sleep to the sound of acorns echoing through the neighborhood on early fall nights.

When it was over, we fought against impending winter to shovel and haul them all away. Buckets. Ninety-five-gallon rubbish-barrels full. It was unreal. I spent years picking the oak saplings out of the gardens.

If only I had thought to collect and mill this abundant resource.

Have you ever turned acorns into food? What other “pest” have you made into food?