Friday, March 25, 2011

Spring stirrings

I awoke to 3 inches of snow yesterday morning. It is what folks in the north country would call a sugar snow ... big white fluffy flakes that stick to branches like cherry blossoms. By 2 PM it was gone ... evaporated like melted sugar on your tongue.

I am near the garden a little earlier this year and thought that maybe I would put in a pea trellis before I headed back to DC for the real cherry blossoms. I was chagrined to find the ground still too hard to secure bamboo poles deep enough. But maybe I will put the pea seeds in anyway.

Last fall, determined to start 2011 with only fresh seed in my seedbox, I put all my old spinach seed in the ground. Well lo and behold, we have lift off. I planted it on the interior of the bed that will hold the trellised peas. Just maybe there will be a spinach crop.Now to the artichokes. It was a very cold winter. I happened to be here for some of the very coldest days, and I am not ashamed to tell you that I filled milk cartons with hot water and and placed them inside the wall-o-waters on the nights we had single digits. I THINK it paid off. I cannot tell for sure yet, but I think at least one of my artichokes survived the winter, maybe three. Meanwhile, I have dutifully started seedlings again this year ... my version of a hedge fund.Pretty soon I will get some Big Zacs and some morning glories under lights. Step by step.

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