After months of snow/cold/blizzard, we’ve had a taste of the sun by early April & garden hormones are raging! Is there such a thing as garden hormones you ask! Of course there is! It’s the hormones that are generated when you see that first sign of green outside. A rogue dandelion is enough to get them going. The birds seem to have started activating them lately 💁🏽‍♀️

The very 1st thing that appeared were the garlic in the veg bed- truth be told, they appeared in mid March! Chives have followed. I had forgotten I sowed seed last year. Indoors seed starting happened beginning of Feb but in April things started happening in earnest. The weather suddenly changed to be 27°C or 80°F roughly, a few days ago & suddenly it’s a game of whack a mole. No sooner than one garden job is done, ten others appear in line! So far I’m quite behind (according to my own schedule) but I’m not letting it get to me because let’s face it, life’s too short to worry about whether you scratched bone meal at the base of your perennials. I haven’t yet and this is one way I’m putting it on my list for tomorrow. It’s an early spring job that I have learnt brings results!

So what’s in bloom you ask? Indoors- Mandevila started blooming 2-3 weeks ago. Followed by a geranium. Pansies followed from seeds started on Feb 1st indoors. Then Crocus outdoors, then lungwort (pulmonaria). Tulip buds have started appearing as have fritallaria- crown imperialis buds.

What have I been up to in the garden? A makeshift coldframe was made on the deck – the walls are hay bales I used to insulate the greenhouse from outside. Initially the top was heavy plastic & an old window, now it’s a piece of tulle to keep out pesky squirrel & insects – I’m sure they are around! Garden cleanup is happening in stages, as time & energy allows. After all coffee won’t drink itself! Some minor weed pulling has started and will.not.stop at all throughout the season! The veg patch – 2 small raised beds 4×8 each, were lightly tilled to even things out (aged manure was applied in the fall), pea seeds sowed early April, along with spinach, mache, mustard- tah tsai; followed last week by turnip & dill. Shelling peas have broken through & sugar snaps are slowly emerging. A few broccoli, kale & cabbage seedlings were transplanted. One Cabbage got a leaf slightly chomped off & one is non existent owing to heat & my decision to use frost cloth as insect barrier on that bed. Oh well. Other seedlings will be added. I also made an executive decision NOT to harden off those transplants. Rationale? I haven’t a clue now why I thought I could put them out in stifling heat after being coddled for 3-4 weeks. Beats me! Kale & broccoli are actually holding up well. What I did right was to water them before they came out of the house and watered the planting hole & watered them in. Today frost cloth was swapped out for netting to keep out insects & squirrels- who will stop at nothing to get at my new seeds. They chewed a hole in my plastic fencing that was meant for rabbits, who have over the winter months had a master class in how to cut out doorways- literal doorways, into the plastic fencing. Moving on before this gets derailed. In the next couple days I plan to suspend a net over the wooden fence so peas & later cukes can grow up it. My pea trellis last year, made of bamboo & burlap cord, was a joke so it’s getting a cheap upgrade. Clematis were pruned, as were some other ornamentals that I leave till spring to cut down so I have some idea where I’ve planted things in past years, so they are not dug up while planting other things in spring. Lots more of this is yet to be done. A perennial bed expansion has been partially approved by the Other half, who very much enjoys grass, so now my brain is in overdrive! Must get that bed started before things are to go in it in May. It will be a part edible/ part ornamental bed because that’s how we must roll given the number of things that have been started from seed with no real estate to attribute them to. Oh us gardeners are funny- at least I buy furniture first & the house later 😂

There aren’t any surfaces left that can be used for putting seeds on. There are altogether too many seedlings of some things. If one were to count the romaine seedlings alone- it would seem I am preparing to supply a nursery but I assure you, that is not the case! They must go somewhere & it won’t be in my garden, no matter how much I try because there are hundreds of seedlings of other veg & flowers that also need to go somewhere.

As I repotted the pansies dig up by a wayward squirrel, I started planning my defences against these critters. Google has been raided & for now, the one tiny pot has been lined with stones. Forks come out next!

Tomorrow is a new day. Before temperatures dip back into below freezing territory, I must get a few things done. It’s off to bed to recharge and start the day afresh tomorrow, seeds and trowel in hand. Hope you enjoy this season full of hope & plans & May flowers bloom where you least expect them. 🌱