MARCH IN KANSAS

March came in like a lion, a snow lion! 

It’s been a very cold windy start to the beginning of the garden season. Right now I have to go to the cellar to get my spring green fix where seedlings are happily growing under the lights.  In another couple of weeks it should be warm enough at night for some of them to move out to the greenhouse where they will really start to take off.  It would be great if they could move out quicker because I need the room for my next round of starts.  Right now I have cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, onions, leeks, lettuce, parsley, thyme, anise hyssop and a half a dozen different flowers residing on a table under 3 shop lights.  Later this week I plan to start peppers and eggplant, then next week it will be flats of tomatoes, basil, and more flowers. 

There is so much to do but it can be hard to get motivated when it is cold and gray, really I don’t think the seeds even want to come out of the packages on a days like this.  The weather man has promised sun by the end of the week so I won’t get too far behind schedule.

Maybe I should go sit under the lights too! 

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Garden Dreaming

It's the New Year, the holiday festivities are over and the seed catalogs have arrived just in time to add brightness to a dreary January.  Cold winter nights are the perfect time to curl up in a cozy chair and plan out the garden season ahead. 

I sip hot herbal tea and makes lists of everything I want to plant this year.  Of course since the real work is still a couple months away I can be as impractical as I want. I add anything that catches my eye to the list. 

There always seems to be a whole new bunch of tomato varieties that look too good to pass up, all the different colors and shapes. I must have one of each.  How many types of summer squash can I get away with this year? What about the beautiful eggplants and the peppers and all the different greens, and I haven’t even started looking for flowers. The list keeps getting longer and longer. 

Eventually reason will start to take hold again and I will whittle my orders down to an almost manageable level. This year’s garden in my January mind is way different than the April reality.  I will probably once again plant the onions too late and maybe not get to that last packet of morning glories but oh how wonderfully lush and unique is my imagined garden!

Pamela