Tuesday 3-26-02

The Spring Equinox (20th) brought 8” of beautiful snow in the morning, so we didn’t have our fire in the garden, but we had a wonderful dinner to celebrate! A few more limbs were trimmed from the trees and the winds were powerful but we kept our electricity, others didn’t.

The weekend brought very little warmth for playing outside except for walks. The 8” of snow was still on the ground and tarps. But that has not stilled our passion for garden planning. We attended a lecture at Merry Springs on Sunday on Winter Gardening. Though it was scaled more for commercial growers, we gleaned what we wanted from it and returned to the plan Su.Sane used in her home in Kentucky, which we could expand upon here for year-round growing, studio, and relaxing space. It became very feasible to us after seeing what we didn’t want. We will wait for the where and when intuitively.

Su.Sane and Robert and I looked through the seed catalogs and found what the garden wants to start as seedlings and what we will plant as transplants. The intuitive process is very exact and helps eliminate all the confusion and guessing of what this garden wants to grow and what it doesn’t. One of Paul Parent’s suggestions for onions was to not plant “sets” but onion seedlings! That we would have more success up here with that form. Cool, eh??

After yesterday’s conversation with Rosa at Speedling, I think our flats will be here very soon. After a morning at the harbor we drove over to Green Thumb and pre-shopped their seeds and garden goodies. By the end of the week we will return there and purchase our seeds, etc. and maybe have them started this weekend. We found the horticultural oil and will have that on hand for trees, plants, and ground usage (spray surface around perennials to keep any insects, disease to come up through the soil with the new growth – per Paul Parent). We also looked at a rain barrel of heavy plastic that will work great in the garden for watering, and found the plant food we wanted, Cock-A-Doddle Doo (great stuff). We walked all the greenhouses and breathed in the fragrances and the humidity and the colors.

I want to get the plastic on the glass enclosure, if weather conditions permit, so that we can put the trays inside it with just about 6 hours of full sun each day. We have the seeds that Gale and Tommy brought over last week, so we will get those started too.

We will be making nail boards for the flats to release the plugs when they are ready for transplanting into the ground or larger pots. That will be a weekend project also before the flats are filled.

Had another wonderful breakfast at Hannibals this Palm Sunday, then a very creative day. Su.Sane and Robert have completed four canvases of their “Garden Plan” series, and began 3 more that afternoon. They are exceptional paintings and the desire for more, more, more runs through all of us. This is a story of their work and our lives, and we can feel the momentum of the coming time.

Be still my pounding heart……Spring is really Here!