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Spring does FINALLY seem to be here in lower Michigan. My lilacs are blooming and my daughter Ariel picks me lovely bouquets. It brings back lots of good memories from my childhood of vases of lilacs.
This year I’m trying to do more with the garden then I have in years. When we first moved to this house I did a decent vegetable garden the first couple years then as I had more children and less time the garden didn’t fare so well. In fact some years it wasn’t there at all. Over the last few years I’ve gone back to it again and each year doing a little more but this years’ definitely has the most thought, planning and time into it so far!
One of the things I decided to do was keep a garden notebook. In years past I’ve always sketched out a little design on a piece of paper but that’s about it. This year I wanted to keep track of when I planted what and have some idea of harvest dates and such. My daughter laughed at me for my notebook (I must truly be a homeschool mom to have a garden notebook, right!?!?) but my friend (who is another homeschool mom) came over and she truly understood! In fact she has one too!
So far things are going pretty well in the garden. I’ve started onions (both bunching and fall crop), potatoes (Yukon gold), radishes (mixed carrot seeds in but no luck there), turnip, as well as lettuce and spinach in the cold frame. They stay in the cold frame because in years past I just can’t keep the rabbits out of the garden and away from them.
While at convention a few weeks back with the help of my Dad my boys built my cold frame. It’s great! It even snowed after I started my seeds in there and the lettuce and spinach still came up just fine. My only frustration was the ground cloth I used under it that was “guaranteed” to block weeds does not. I have blades of grass growing through that are impossible to pull out with the root because of the ground cloth. UGH!
It’s supposed to be another beautiful day today and my daughter Ariel has finally shown some interest, not in vegetables but flowers. She wants to get started today so we’ll probably work on an area of flowers that I haven’t had much time for that she’s going to take over and add some of her own. We’ll see how long her enthusiasm holds out for her new interest!
My younger daughter is taking a “square” in the garden to put in what she chooses. Most of what she wants is warm weather crops so we should still wait a week or two though with this weather it’s VERY tempting to put in now!
So are you gardening this year? Come on, at least put in a tomato plant, you know you want to!
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