It's Time To Start the 2014 Garden!

written by Yvonne

It's February.

Time to get started on our 2014 garden.

Look how excited Honey and Olive are about getting the garden started.

It certainly is perfect weather for it. OK, so maybe TODAY isn't the day we'll start droppin' seeds into the garden beds, but when it snows it actually is the exact right time to get started. 

We filled in our seed-starting chart which helps determine when to start seeds in pots, when to start seeds directly in the beds, and when to transfer the seedlings from pots to bed, all of which revolves around the last frost date for the year. This year the last date for frost is April 11.

There are a lot of seeds to get started including: cabbage, lettuce, collards, kale, peppers, parsley, and spinach.

We managed to get a bag full of newspaper pots made before...

Honey got hold of the pot maker and used it as a chew toy!  Looks like she enjoyed the heck out of it I guess.

 

A White Christmas

written by Yvonne

A white Christmas makes for a lovely seasonal song and cozy gift opening inside, but doesn't help a garden a darn bit. We came back from a family visit in Florida to a beautiful, but somewhat damaging (in terms of our garden) blanket of snow.

Although Tom "winterized" the garden by putting down layers of leaves and cover cloths, I have doubts about what will survive under this chilly snow covering. One thing we know for sure, the peas definitely didn't make it. My money says any root vegetable growing under the soil will be fine; namely the garlic, leeks, turnips, carrots, beets and maybe broccoli.  Gone will be the spinach, collards, parsley, all lettuce, kale and peas (which we know for sure is done).  Tom, on the other hand, believes it will all bounce back in the Spring.  Only time will tell. Stay tuned and we'll all find out together.

Here are a few other pictures of our place in the snow.

There likely won't be much garden new for a while, but we will have bee news as Tom works his way through Bee School.  Wonder if he'll keep at least a "B" average.  (I crack myself up sometimes.)