Signs of life in the garden
Even
though the grass in the aisles is starting to green up, the garden
looks pretty bare and brown. But if you peer closely enough,
you'll see signs of life.
Despite an unusually
cold winter, our Valentine's Day peas
popped up a few days ago with an excellent germination
percentage. In a nearby cold frame, cabbage and broccoli seeds
bathed in the absurdly high temperatures required for germination (60
to 70 degrees Fahrenheit) and have already opened up their
cotyledons. We even have true leaves beginning on the lettuce in
the other cold frame.
Meanwhile, the garlic
and Egyptian onions are putting on their spring growth spurt.
Even if I didn't like garlic, I think I would plant them for their
beauty in the spring, so firm and tall against the brown leaf mulch.
On the wild side, I've been
keeping an eye on pollinators (other than our honeybees, of
course.) The unintentional bed of chickweed outside our kitchen
window has been buzzing with these small native bees --- does anyone
know what they are? Don't forget to leave some weedy patches in
your own garden to give these guys a home!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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