Is It Time to Garden Yet?
Of course it’s not time. It is January, and while we just had an exceedingly pretty day in the 50’s with sunshine, and will have another one tomorrow, I am not fooled. Spring is still quite a ways off. But with the holidays now passed, and a cold, boring January stretching out in front of me, I can’t help but dream about what I will plant this year.
It doesn’t help that I got my first seed catalogs in the mail this week.
So now I’m ogling multicolored carrots, blue potatoes, buttercrunch lettuce, and a new squash called a “cupcake.” Not to make it worse or anything, but my first issue of my new subscription to Mother Earth News came a couple of weeks ago. These things are like salt in the wound, you know? I even went by my garden plot today. There is ice and snow everywhere, but I tiptoed my way through it, wearing my shorts and tennis shoes, just to see if everything was as I left it. It’s not like anything would have changed, of course. But I had to look anyway.
But I’ve been keeping busy anyway. I’ve finished the first round of the editor’s requested edits on my novel, which you can read more about on my writing blog. I’ve been working on a few craft projects, like making boot socks for my daughter, and crocheting a few things, reading, playing with the cats, and working. Spring will be here soon enough, and I’ll be buried. This is my slow time, my waiting time. My do-nothing time. My time to sleep. Just like my garden.
I did snag a pretty good deal on blackberries at the local grocery. I don’t know where these come from this time of year, when my world is frozen, but I’m not complaining. I tossed four pints of them into a pot with some sugar and water and boiled them down for syrup. Froze 4 half-pints of syrup and kept one out to use on pancakes and ice cream. The house smelled amazing while I cooked the syrup. And pouring the syrup into jars reminded me that I need to buy a canner before summer. I want to be able to can most things, instead of relying completely on the freezer.
And today, I picked up about 300 pounds of rabbit manure. The raised bed I built last fall and filled with leaves and kitchen waste has not cooked at all over the winter. I did stomp on it a bit today and it does pack down some, but there is a long way to go before it is ready for me to plant in it. What I don’t have with that bed is the luxury of time. I could buy some soil to fill it, which I may still have to do, but getting a big supply of rabbit poo is going to help tremendously. I hauled it home in my little car (it was in big yard waste bags) and spread it over the leaves and kitchen waste. I’ll water it tomorrow and poke it around a bit. I should get another 300 pounds in a few weeks, which I will spread on my other little garden. Whatever is left from that will go in the raised bed. If we get some warm days with sun, and then some snow or rain, and some more sun, I may get that bed ready to go after all.
This stuff is liquid gold for a gardener. Rabbit poo is well-composted, as rabbits are good digesters. Adding soil to the top of this and mixing it all together should bring me a bed that is ready to grow yummy things for us this summer.
I’m still debating on whether I want to get two plots at the community garden this year. I made it through last year by borrowing a third of someone else’s plot so I could grow my pumpkins. I hate to spend for a whole second plot for pumpkins and corn, but then again, I would love to have had more of both last year. I’m still on the fence, and I guess I have about another month to make a decision. Even with the raised bed at the house, I don’t know if I’ll have enough to grow all that I want to grow.
But that’s what this cold time of year is for. Time for me to plan and decide what I am going to grow, and how much room it will take. Spring is only 62 days away. Not that Spring means anything here. There will be no planting until late April (cold-weather things) and most of the things won’t go in until late May. Last year we had snow two weeks after Mother’s Day. Such a long time away!
