Full Eagle Moon

Well, the blog has come full circle. With it being February 2011 I've had it for a year. I'm going to try a new thing with my full moon updates. I had mentioned before that I wished there were full moon names that better corresponded to Texas. The only ones I'd seen around were English or Algonquian. Well, a friend of mine has passed on to me a full moon naming scheme invented by the high priestess of his former coven. He only asks that I give credit where credit is due if I distribute the names to the public, so the names I'll be using for the next year all come from Phoenix Moon Grove.

The moons are named according to Zodiac signs rather than the calendar months, and are all named after something Texas-related. Last night's full moon was in Leo, and the sun is in Aquarius, so this year the full moon of February was the Eagle Moon. This name was chosen because this is the time of year that Bald Eagles migrate through Texas.

Personally, this is one of the few names on this list that I don't like that much. Bald eagles are cool, but I've never actually seen one, and I've lived in Texas all my life. I only recently found out that they're even found in Texas at all. From what I've heard, they're mostly found around large lakes and along the coast, which makes sense since they're a fishing eagle. There are even eagle tours you can go on to see them.

I think moons should be named after something more obvious than a rare, seldom-seen bird. If we're going to name this moon after a bird, I would have named it the Mockingbird Moon. I think there should be a moon named after our state bird, and mockingbirds are ubiquitous. You don't have to travel to a lake to find them. There's probably a pair nesting in your yard right now. This is also the time of year they start singing, which for me heralds the beginning of spring. It also goes well with next month's moon, the Bluebonnet Moon, which is our state flower and indicates that spring is here for sure.

Well, whether February's full moon makes you think of mockingbirds or eagles, it certainly feels like spring now after that hard freeze at the beginning of the month. We've had drizzle and light rain for the last few days, and I've had a chance to assess the damage done by that freeze and have been planning out my spring planting.

We haven't had another freeze in a while, so I've had my nightshade seedlings out on the porch all the time. The tomatoes are doing great, but not the peppers, eggplants, and tomatillos. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong with starting pepper and eggplant seeds, but they never seem to do that well. Even the Lemon Drop peppers, which seemed to be doing great before, are now shriveling up. I don't get it.

Sweetie the Potato now has some friends. It looks like growing new sweet potatoes from slips is better than cuttings after all. Most of my cuttings didn't make it, so I've been sprouting roots for slips. They grow much more vigorously than cuttings, probably because of the food reserves stored in the roots. In the top left of the picture is the original deformed Vardaman potato that sprouted in the kitchen, and then to the right of that is a Porto Rico, then on the bottom left is a Beuregard, and the bottom right is a White Yam. I have a few more sprouted White Yams and Porto Ricos I haven't potted up yet (ran out of potting soil). The one variety from last year that isn't represented is Nancy Hall. I have two Nancy Hall potatoes that have been sitting in cups of water for at least as long as the other varieties, and they still aren't sprouting. Don't know what the problem is.

Out in the garden, a lot of plants didn't make it through the hard freeze. The lettuce and endive were only slightly damaged.

The leeks, garlic, potato onions, and shallots also seem fine. The bulb onions are another story, but I'm not surprised. I've still never been able to grow those successfully. I'm wondering if I should just give up on having homegrown onions this year, or buy some onion starts from a nursery.

The fava beans and peas were badly damaged, and I was afraid they weren't going to make it, but it looks like at least some of them are re-sprouting. Good! Those were my only seeds, so I wanted to at least be able to save seed to make a big planting of them next fall, even though it now looks like I won't have enough to eat.

Everything else, the brassicas, beets, carrots, chard, etc., all ended up looking like this. Frozen to death. That green you see? Those are weeds. The weeds did fine.

But in the garden, there are always second chances and new beginnings. Looking at the planting guide for San Marcos, it looks like I have enough time to try for another quick crop of cool-weather vegetables, so I replanted a bunch of stuff. I just direct seeded everything this time. The turnips here are already coming up. They sprouted fast in this damp weather.

I've also been doing a little "remodeling", because gardeners never have enough space! After calculating that I actually had more path than bed in the garden, I'm merging some of my beds and expanding them out a little. I don't need that much path anyway, do I? So instead of 15 beds that are 4 by 8 feet each laid out in a 3 by 5 pattern, I'm going to have 5 beds that are 4 by 8 feet, and 5 that are 4 by 20 feet. Now maybe I'll at least have more bed than path.