It's Spring!
I mean, I know it's been spring for a few weeks, but it actually feels like spring and it's starting to look like spring, too. phew! The grass is greening up, and the trees have buds, some are just starting to have tiny leaves open. The very sad forsythia is blooming. (It's sad because it's planted with some other flowering thing right at the corner of my house. I didn't do that. My gardening skills are few, but I know enough to give room to grow.) Every year I wish I had more of it, but I only love it when it's blooming. I'm fickle like that.
The seeds I started last month have sprouted and with any luck, I will be overrun with tomatoes, cukes, and red peppers later this summer. Also starting in the sunroom: basil, cilantro, oregano, dill, and lettuce. While the veggies will get transplanted next month, the herbs will stay safely in the sunroom away from the bunny. The rhubarb is coming up and so are the strawberries which I had in containers last year. They will need a new home, too.
Daffodils are up (but need to be moved) and so are the chionodoxa. New irises are transplanted in the front yard. And tiny little violet leaves are coming up through the lawn. This probably horrifies some people, but I love them. And this year there will be violet syrup. I'm hoping this will also mean a summer of violet lemonade and violet cocktails.
It's a fantastic 43° here today. Of course we're still covered with snow and my sidewalks are all one ginormous puddle, but spring is coming!
So I started the garden.
Well, I started plum tomatoes, red peppers and pickling cukes. And it's actually on time to start them. For once. We can generally start planting outdoors at Mother's Day where I live. I admit: I do not like gardening. Not even a little. But I do like eating. A lot. And what's in the produce department at the supermarket does not compare to garden fresh veggies. And so I want a garden.
I also want a gardener to do the gardening for me.
Last year, I started everything late and ended up with some sad containers instead of full garden. The year before I didn't manage to get even that far. To say that the garden area is overgrown does not really cover it. Our yard is constantly trying to return to its native prairie state. Mother Nature is tenacious, and, I think, senses our weak will-edness when it comes to lawn maintenance. Our neighbors have the best maintained yard on the block.
Sometimes I feel bad for them that they have to live across the street from us.
I'm hoping for raised beds this year. I'm convinced it will help with weeds and hopeful that it will deter some of the critters. As I was planting these seeds today, I thought I am going to have raised beds if I have to kill someone to get them. And then I laughed because I'd need to kill at least four people for each bed.
Remind me of this post when I wonder why no one will come to my house.
