Spinach likes it cold

While visiting our amazing local farmers market one spring, I was amazed at how many stands had a spinach harvest available. At the time, I think I may have JUST planted my own spinach, so the sight of so much spinach bounty seemed a miracle that early in the season. Out of curiosity I asked one farmer, "When do you plant your spinach?", and their reply was "fall". This seemed amazing at first, but isn't that exactly what we do with garlic? Plant in the fall and it pops out of the ground in the spring. I'm still a little weary of planting my spinach in the fall, but I have learned from experience that the earlier you plant your seeds in the spring- the better your harvest.

Flaming Buckets of Mayhem

Remember that nice bon fire I had going all day Wednesday? Well the next day this was what I found- tons of ashes! I gathered my buckets and shovel to collect all that goodness with relish.

By the way, this is a story of what NOT to do.

The Garden's Burning Amends

It's March and I'm back in the garden. After getting a snow storm that dumped 16" of snow on us literally a week and a half ago- all the snow seems like ancient history now. Thankfully the daytime temperatures have generally been ranging in the mid 40's making the garden rows workable once again.

Some of the ground is still frozen so some of the tasks around the backyard are somewhat limited, such as installing a fence around the orchard. Lately I've been bundled up and searching the yard for dead branches, clearing out brush and pulling up lots of Virginia creeper vines (which is pretty fun to do).

Several occasions through the year I've been building fires to burn up some of the yard refuse and dead wood to make ashes for the garden. My system so far entails collecting dead branches and relocating them to piles near the area I use for the fire located just south of the garden. This is something I'll do throughout the year. One pile is small twigs, and another is very large branches or logs. Its like a palette of fire building materials ready and waiting for that special day. Damp days seem to be safer days to play around with fire. What's more fun than having a warm welcoming fire on a chilly day? Therefore, I usually choose cold and dank days to build my fires... which made today perfect.

Seed Starting Leeks

Winter is having separation anxiety- just let us go! *sigh* Anyway, while I cannot get out to the snow covered garden just yet, this does not mean my gardening ventures have been on hold- quite the opposite.