Late Winter Seduction

The daytime temps have been getting into the 50's and even mid 60's (*F) and one night it was even over freezing (barely, but over freezing none the less). The sun has been bright, the sky clear, the winds calm. Little by little, a minute or so a day, the sun is rising earlier and setting later. And so, even though I am probably a few weeks too early, I was seduced into starting seeds this past week. 20 little basil plants are up and under lights - waiting on 20 more basils to germinate. 24 tiny tomato seeds also sown - sweet baby girl, yellow pear, red pear - cherry tomatoes who will hopefully set fruit even when the days are near tripple digits. Alaskan Fancy to see if we can get a headstart on the tomato season when it's still cool outside. Roma just because. And for the "experimental tomato for the season", I've sown some "Tomato Vera" - a hollow pepper shaped tomato - for stuffing. I'm hoping it is as prolific as they say.

Still, it is early to be planting, so I will hold off for another week and start more tomatoes and basils and also the other herbs, such as lemon balm, monarda and sweet marjoram.

It's been a pretty wet winter and, to make it even nicer, the snow has spread itself out across the season, so the trees are well watered and hardy weeds are already sprouting. Still, while that is excellent for the trees, it doesn't do much for the summer vegetable garden. So a few summers back, my husband drug water out to the garden area. Here you see some of the PVC pipe that is burried under the sand. It extends about 200 ft to my little garden area. Without it, there would be no garden.