Today was a great weather day. Not too hot, not too cold, and oddly, not too windy. Perfect for working in the yard and garden.
This weather has me antsy to start planting things. I’m holding off though since I know it is bound to get cold again, and if it is like last year, we’ll get a late season snowstorm. I don’t want to shock any plants like last year. The peppers never did recover.
A couple of weeks ago, while buying more mulch for James’ backyard project, I bought a couple of bags of manure too. Figured it might be a more natural way of providing fertilizer, nutrients and starter for the continuation of breaking down the straw into soil. I’ve not done this experiment before and have no idea if it will work.
After spreading the manure everywhere, on all my gardens, I gave each of them a good soaking. Thankfully, we had enough rain recently to refill our rain barrels (a great investment that has more than paid for itself). I like using this water since it is more natural and untreated, unlike what comes out of the spigot. My thought is with the manure and the good soaking with the rain water, those two things will also help in getting the straw ready.
Up next is searching for heirloom seeds and plants from Baker Creek—our local library uses this company for their seed library. Since heirlooms are supposed to fair better since they’ve been around longer, I’m going to use them for as much of the garden as I can. If I can learn more on how to do it, my hope is to save some of these seeds back for next year and start a cycle of “recycling” seeds.
Although I wish we’d have had more snow and cold than we have had so far, thank you Mother Nature for a great gardening day!
P.S.-I do have my first blossoms of the year. Here is a picture of them.
Personal Reflections of a Middle-Aged Man 