I am so excited to see that the last of the snow in the garden has melted and now the garden can begin to wake up! A quick tour of the garden and I see that there is a lot of work to do before my beds are ready for the earliest of spring plantings such as peas.
In the fall I covered all of my beds with the leaves we raked and the leaves will be worked into the soil as I add extra soil and hummus to get my beds ready. The leaves always add a wonderful natural compost to my beds and I always have a lot of great earthworms to keep the soil looking great.
I checked the cold frame again, now that it is not covered in snow. I still have a fair amount of scarlet nantes carrots to pull. They have been great during the winter and I love how sweet they are after being in the cold frame through the fall and winter. In November I planted some oak leaf lettuce to see what would happen and I noticed today that we have oak leaf seedlings that look pretty good for late February! I highly recommend some type of cold frame to add to the length of your growing season.
Now, I just have to wait for the soil to dry out a little so I can start preparing my raised beds. With all of the snow everything is just too wet. As tempting as it is, you never want to work your soil when it is too wet. In the long run, it's not worth the damage it causes to the soil. So, I'll be patient and go back to working with my seed starting indoors for a week or two more.
In the fall I covered all of my beds with the leaves we raked and the leaves will be worked into the soil as I add extra soil and hummus to get my beds ready. The leaves always add a wonderful natural compost to my beds and I always have a lot of great earthworms to keep the soil looking great.
I checked the cold frame again, now that it is not covered in snow. I still have a fair amount of scarlet nantes carrots to pull. They have been great during the winter and I love how sweet they are after being in the cold frame through the fall and winter. In November I planted some oak leaf lettuce to see what would happen and I noticed today that we have oak leaf seedlings that look pretty good for late February! I highly recommend some type of cold frame to add to the length of your growing season.
Now, I just have to wait for the soil to dry out a little so I can start preparing my raised beds. With all of the snow everything is just too wet. As tempting as it is, you never want to work your soil when it is too wet. In the long run, it's not worth the damage it causes to the soil. So, I'll be patient and go back to working with my seed starting indoors for a week or two more.
