Garden Diary - March 22

Yesterday was my first day working in the garden, and it felt great to be back at it. I took down all of the dead vines, pruned the clematis and sage, and cleaned up most of the beds. The bulbs are really coming up strongly now - the yellow crocus are in full bloom, the purple just opened yesterday. There are also tulip, hyacinth, daffodil and anemone tips coming up. We've had lots of great sunny weather recently, so I expect they'll be blooming too before very long.

I've got my seeds and planting trays organized; I just need to make enough pots so that I can get the earliest ones started next weekend.

Garden Diary - March 9

I just discovered last night that my bulbs are starting to grow! Crocuses, tulips and hyacinths. No sign yet of any of the newly planted bulbs - these are all the established flowers. It may have been the recent record high that got them growing so early - hopefully there won't be any more serious winter weather that could damage them.

Garden Diary - March 2

Winter seems to be neverending (today was -15 degrees Celsius) so I've been re-reading gardening books (Diane Ackerman's "A Natural History of My Garden"), buying seeds, going to gardening events (Seedy Saturday this past weekend), and day dreaming about spring. I'm going to start the earliest of my seedlings on April 1 (6-8 weeks before planting).

In the meantime, here's a list of all the planned edible plants for 2009:

Perennials:
• rhubarb
• gooseberries
• raspberries
• sage
• purple sage
• chives
• silver thyme
• lemon thyme
• blueberries
• daylillies
• hollyhocks
• sorrel
• golden oregano
• mint
• lemon mint
• chamomile
• stevia (new)
• winter savory (new)
• greek oregano (new)
• alpine strawberries (new)
• corn salad (new)
• tarragon (new)
• garlic chives (new)
• rosemary
• bee balm

Annuals:
• scarlet runner beans
• nasturtiums
• mesclun salad mix (new)
• purple pole bean
• snow pea
• Indian spinach
• cucumber (new)
• basil mix (new)
• ground cherry (new)
• chocolate cherry tomato (new)
• ildi yellow grape tomato (new)
• window box Roma tomato (new)
• early butternut squash (new)
• sunburst patty pan squash (new)
• Easter egg radish (new)
• small sugar pumpkin (new)
• explosive ember pepper (new)
• tall telephone peas (new)
• new queen watermelon (new)
• spicy mix salad greens (new)
• blue curled Scotch kale (new)
• winterbor kale (new)
• ornamental kale (new)
• fairy tale eggplant (new)
• chioggia beets (new)
• asparagus peas (new)
• buttercup squash
• rainbow chard
• Huazontle red Aztec spinach (new)
• arugula
• radish baby leaf Sai Sai
• spinach (new)
• dinosaur lacinato blue kale (new)
• broccoli raab (new)
• komatsuna (new)
• chicory mix (new)
• zucchini
• winter squash (new)
• Chinese green lance kale (new)
• Choi-san (new)
• mustard red giant (new)