In this part of the country, where you dare not venture into the midsummer garden during daylight hours for fear of becoming lunch for one of Alabama’s 60 species of native mosquitoes, spring comes early. We’re not quite out of February yet, but my gardener friends are already firing up their tillers and gleefully unpacking mail-ordered seed potato stock. At Bellingrath Gardens, just south of town, they are gearing up for the annual Azalea Watch. Starting next Monday, you can log in daily to see the progression of 250,000 azaleas as they transform the gracious old estate into 63 acres of riotously ruffled color.
Spring themes are showing up in the work of my artist friends, too. Using this stoneware cup from Steve Dark’s pottery studio in Gulf Shores, you can wet your whistle with a thistle (and a bird… which IS a whistle):
And in her rural Magnolia Springs studio, Anne Webb makes elegant pots from local clay and embellishes them with brushwork dragonflies:
Our winter garden is providing us with broccoli, chard and green onions now. We’ll start harvesting cabbage, peas and old-fashioned Morris heading collard greens in a week or two. There are three bags of red LaSoda potatoes piled on the back porch, ready for the potato patch. (Red LaSoda, the creamy-fleshed mutant form of a market potato popular in Lousiana in the 1940s, is the potato of choice in this region.)
But even springtime has its downside. For reasons known only to the mysterious inner workings of my immune system, I come down with a nasty cold every year at this time. Generally healthy all year, I can count on spending the first week or so of March slouching around with pockets full of wadded Kleenex and a voice like a bullfrog. When I first met The Perfect Man, he won my heart by cooking up a curative curried carrot soup. Now it’s an annual cold-season tradition (and extremely tasty anytime).
Curry Carrot Ginger Soup
- 3 tbsp unsalted butter
- 2 large onions, thinly sliced
- 2 pounds carrots, thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup apple juice
- 6 cups vegetable broth
- 1/4 cup grated fresh ginger
- 1 tbsp curry powder
- 1-3 tbsp honey
- Salt and pepper
Melt the butter in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook for five minues or until soft. Add the carrots and apple juice and cook for three minutes. Add broth, ginger and curry powder. Bring to a boil.
Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 40 minutes or until the carrots are very tender.
Remove from heat. Working in batches, pour the soup into a food processor or blender. Process until smooth. Transfer to a large bowl, stir in honey and salt and pepper to taste.
valwebb.com 
Val, Oh! I surely wish I could be heading your way… I hope you post on the azaleas… AND on the artwork by your friends. I followed your links. I’ll visit Anne’s site again, but I had to e-mail Steve to see if he still created mugs like yours. 🙂 Thank you for the recipe… looks delicious!
i feel for ya on the sickness front. been sick over here for the last two weeks with some sort of horrible crud. you’re harvesting peas already!!??!! mine are just starting to sprout up. i planted them over two weeks ago and then we got some super cold weather and a few inches of snow. but now it’s warming up and the pea and radish seeds are sprouting outside. i think the spinach seeds i planted at the same time are done for. dig the blue and pink mug with the birdie. awesome. have you posted pictures of your garden space lately?? would love to see some if you have the time.
stay well.
I tend to get all crappy in March–usually it passes if I just make myself do nothing for a day.
Sigh, never quite made Bellengrath when the spring blooms hit, it was always later in the year.
Now I want to make that curried carrot soup and serve it in that bird whistle mug… the blue and orange… mmmm mmmm.
I’m still pretending there is no such thing as mosquitoes. 🙂