The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

Can you believe it, this is the last column of February? I have been busy all month trying to think of ways to keep us all busy so the mid winter blahs don’t set in and already it is almost March when those blahs start to go away.

Although I must say that no one should have had the mid winter blahs this February as it was just a darn nice month, with lots of sun, a little moisture and the only big events were too much wind.

I have actually been out in the garden cleaning last year’s leaves off the plants and defining beds that sort of all grew together during the fall.

I can see huge sweet rocket plants all over the north end of my garden which says that I am going to have a sweet rocket season like I have never seen before.

Sweet rocket is a very tall plant that has purple flowers and smells very sweet. From the Young ranch on Clear Creek to Fuglevand’s cabin, the hillsides are full of it as cabin owners planted a lot of it fifty years ago and it still comes up every other year.

In my yard that is the dominant year meaning I will have larger displays this year then next year which is not a dominant year. In other words the plant is a biannual meaning that it only comes up every second year. But other rockets comes up when the original does not.

Once you get it going in your garden, you will get some every year, it is just not the same plants every year.

I looked and looked for seeds and finally found some years ago at Big R. they were simply called Rocket. I planted them one spring, nothing came up but in the fall there was a row of them in the garden and from then on my garden and yard has been overcome with rocket each spring.

The smell is intoxicating! The flowers are beautiful and when they come out early, there is simply not a more glorious way to start celebrating a new growing season than with sweet rocket.

Get some. Your life will be enriched!