Do Not

Buff Orpington hen nibbling the last of the indoor lettuce

Dig up the Asiatic lilies you planted last year in the course of making a hole for the gladiolus for this year.

(Dang it!)

Garden stuff happening now:

1) Four gold fish made it through. They seem to be mating. The sun fish will probably eat the fry.
2) Planted: lettuce, spinach, carrots, dahlias, cannas, mixed flowers, peas, beans (Slankette, the best variety I have ever found) Scarlet runner beans, 4 O'clocks, lilies of the valley and gladiolus (in the place where the Asiatic lilies were-duh)
3) Lettuce is up. Spinach too. And peas.
4) Need to buy another seed flat and get a lot more tomatoes going. Set out some squash seed just in case.
5)Started some new water cannas. Hope they grow well.

Seed catalogs

Pinus Strobus toomuchsnowieus

I love seed catalogs. There is no such thing as too many and I read them all...some have photos with colors so intense you feel as if you could warm your hands over them. That can be nice when your world is locked in ice and the sun never seems to shine. Winter is a tough time to be a gardener in a northern state.


However, when it comes time to actually pull out the debit card and start ordering, I usually end up with Pine Tree Garden Seeds' humble missive. Their photos are printed on fuzzy newsprint-style paper and many of the seed varieties are odd to say the least. However, I have had unfailing good luck with their products, especially their mixtures of seeds, such as lettuce mix and hot pepper mix.

Frozen flowering crab on campus

Today, after being interrupted about a dozen times over the past week or so by assorted farm crises, I finally got my order done. As always, I chose the standby vegetables I grow every year, plus some oddities for fun and adventure. I am going to try some tomatoes for sun drying, some Italian summer squash, and Dolce Flambe petunias among others. I can't wait to get started!

It is so very cold and wet and frozen here that it is actually hard to remember that there are growing things under the snow. I am eager to see what flowers volunteer from the mixtures I grew near the garden pond last summer....and if the jelly bean tomatoes self-sow....if the Stuff flower comes back (we don't know what it is, but Mrs. Stuff gave me the first one and we love it.)

Bye Chickadee!