59 Days Until Spring

The winter cover crop is lush and green in the garden. The last food crop, beets, has all been picked, pickled and put up. The garlic is in the ground and we’re already eating scapes (the little green scallion-like stem). My dried herb supply is dwindling. I’m hoarding jars of homegrown pickles like they have special medicinal properties in them! The seed catalogs have been arriving – it’s way better than the toy catalogs when I was kid! Chief Farmhand Chris tilled and built my new raised bed herb garden. I squeezed three quarts of fresh Florida grapefruit juice. A 50-pound burlap sack of tators is sitting in a chair at my kitchen table. The finishing touches are being made on the garden plans. Tomorrow we’ll cut up the seed potatoes. Sunday and Monday we’ll plant the Pontiac Reds. Next week we’ll send off our soil samples for analysis.  I need to design the layout for my herb garden and order some “special” herb seeds.  My nose is cold and the sun is too far away! Spring is in 59 days. 

“Anyone who thinks gardening begins in the spring and ends in the fall is missing the best part of the whole year; for gardening begins in January with the dream.” -Josephine Nuese