Spring Has Sprung!

[winterfirelight]

It's been busy times in the garden! I got the last of my cold-stratified seeds planted last night. On Sunday we took on the big project of replacing the old wooden bed out by the street that's been slowly rotting away and was full of grass anyway. It's all concrete underneath, and the bed was too shallow to be able to plant anything substantial, much less anything that I'd feel comfortable harvesting. In it's place we put in four 2x2 corrugated steel beds that are much taller, and there's space for another 3-4 small beds of that size if we decide we like how these first ones are working. Still some cleanup to do from that, but otherwise it's looking much better. 

I've gotten the feverfew, oregano, and thyme settled in those new spaces, with the last bed ready for the tulsi seedlings whenever they're big enough to transplant. The nights are still getting quite cold, so I'm waiting a while longer before making the little things have to brave the weather. It's supposed to be a temperate variety that can handle our cooler temperatures, but I've previously only grown the more tropical tulsi, which makes me a little more cautious than I maybe need to be. I'll be curious to see how the varieties differ.

The elecampane officially survived the winter, which I'm very happy to see! I thought for sure I had lost it. It's much slower to wake than the rest of the garden. I'm not sure if that's just how it is, or if it's a function of the place where it's been planted. It seemed to lag behind other plants in growth last year, too, but I imagine the second year will tell me quite a bit about how it feels where it is.

There's plenty of maintenance work to do in the garden, but in terms of plants, it's back to a waiting game. All the big plant sales and swaps won't happen until May, and none of the seedlings are quite ready for transplant yet, so I shall bide my time and be patient. I still haven't quite decided where everything will go, or what else I'll buy when the sales come along. There's a real risk I'll run out of space, but at least the soil is amended and weeded and ready to go. Hurrah for warmer days!