Early Spring Harvest

The mache' was planted last Fall and overwintered in the cold frames. Mache' is extremely cold tolerant  and survived numerous sub zero winter days.

There is something about tromping out in the snow...cracking open a cold frames and seeing something green and beautiful growing in the depths of Winter...Fast forward to early Spring and Mache' is worth the wait.

We love it tossed in an everyday green salad.

Spring Flowers

Enjoying the spring bulbs planted around the chicken coop...I often forget what I have planted in the previous fall. Does anyone else do that? 

Yard work & Gopher woes... already!

I am unbelievably happy to be outside playing in the dirt again!

Today was bright, shiny and perfectly cool...and time to start raking up.  My herb garden melts out first, so that's where I start...

Pruning, trimming, and cleaning out the bed.

While cleaning up, I noticed that the Lilac bush I planted last Summer was leaning over. 

Argggh... A damn gopher has constructed an new "Super Highway" through the bed and the Lilac bush happens to be collateral damage!

The bush is budded out and has new shoots,

however, has taken a huge blow to the root system!

I'm hoping that I can save it....Looks like the battle with the gophers has began early this year!

What a difference a week makes

With all the rain this past week, most of the snow is finally melting off the garden. It sure is good to see dirt again!

Winters in North Idaho can get pretty long!!

The garden is still soggy during the day and night temps are still dropping below freezing. 

For now, seedlings are still inside under grow lights.

On a happy note... My  Meyer Lemon tree is bouncing back from the brink of death...

It was looking rather sad and loosing all of it's leaves...I couldn't get the Winter care just right and couldn't tell if I was over watering, or under watering.. I finally decided to re-pot, and that has seemed to do the trick. 

The leaves are growing back and blossom buds are forming like gang busters. 

I think I finally have a good watering and feeding schedule figured out.

Peppers and Toms are looking good. I have been keeping a cool draft on them to prevent them from growing to fast and getting spindly while they are growing  in the house. We heat with wood, and the house is nice and toasty.

Rutgers Tomato seed is 2 years old and had a 100 % germination rate

Sicilian Saucer Tomato seed is brand new, took about  4 days longer to germinate, and has had a germination rate of about 80%