Last sunday we awoke to a blanket of snow. And darrrrrrling, it was marvelous.
Lucy’s favorite thing is to eat snow {okay, and chase squirrels and munch on chewy sticks as well}. She loves wearing her new coat and prancing around the backyard until we pretty much make her come inside. It’s like watching a little kid play in the fluffy goodness and it’s just the sweetest thing ever.
On wednesday the weatherman was predicting more snow. But I didn’t get my hopes up because hello, this is the Pacific Northwest and what do you know…. by saturday night the only thing in the forecast was rain. 🙁 Oh well. I suppose there’s always next year.
Garden wise, this year is going to be a bit of a tricky one. I have a lot on my plate and there are several things I won’t have control over timewise so I’ve decided to simplify how I approach growing/planting/harvesting the vegetables in my garden this year. Some years are like that. And you just have to go with the flow but getting ahead and making sure you have a game plan in place is crucial if you don’t want to drive yourself crazy and overspend.
So this year, in addition to planting seeds, I’ll also be buying a few plant starts. And that includes tomato plants. In years past, I’ve always started my tomatoes from seed because I could pick and choose my favorite heirloom varieties. But this year I plan on travelling during the prime “grow your own tomatoes under grow lights in the laundry room” time frame, and if there is one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that my husband cannot be put in charge of watering and maintaining seedlings. They will all die a horrible death. This, I know for sure.
So, I’ve decided to just let it go…. and hope I can find some decent heirloom varieties at our local nursery or farmer’s market later in the spring. Fingers crossed. 😉
Fava beans though, they are pretty hard to kill. I’ll be planting a few packets of those just as soon as it’s time to get the peas in the ground. Right now the backyard is a frozen tundra. But I’m hoping to get the first seeds planted in the garden {under row covers of course} around President’s day. We’ll see.
For now, all we can do is drool over seed catalogs and make plans for the things to come. Keep calm, and carry on. That’s my motto for the garden this year.
Happy winter everyone. Enjoy it while you can.
~Mavis
