A late gardener

It is the middle of April and I have not been actively gardening. The weather has been cold and that is my excuse, although it isn't really a good excuse. The four largest beds have been prepared. Those four beds had been covered with leaves and were easy to turn over and had few weeds growing. I added a bit of bone meal and some chicken manure to the beds and now they are ready to plant. At the beginning of April I set out Novella Shell peas and pots of sweet peas. Snow peas were planted earlier but I believe the crows pulled them from the ground as soon as they sprouted. I will have to replant quickly or it will be too late for this year.
I planted a new lettuce mostly for the name and the short maturity time; Drunken Woman Frizzy Head. Hope it is as fun to eat as it is to say.
For the first time I set out onion sets. Usually I get starts of Walla Walla's with mixed results. This year I am hopeful for some big yellow rock onions in late summer that will keep through the fall.
I think that having all the over wintering veggies still alive has kept me thinking that the garden is active. It is actively going to seed and things need to be pulled up which I have little heart for. Arugula is now a flowering plant although it still tastes good. The kale is a beautiful ornamental. Old onions are about to flower, the fat round flower heads look great to me. And while I tell myself that the parsnips are growing I know that soon they will become mushy with new growth and it is time to pull them up and eat what I can. The parsnips did over winter just fine but they did not get enough growth in the fall to be full sized. Baby parsnips are better than no parsnips is my thought for now.
We set out some Yellow Fin potatoes and I have some red and blue ones to follow.
Slowly working my way through spring planting....weather permitting.

March 1st and the beginning of the year

The weather this year has been so mild that many plants have over-wintered without any help from me. We've been eating Laccinato kale many times a week,cooked and raw in salads. The mustard greens are delicious and a half a dozen plants is just enough for two, I pick the leaves randomly and they grow back fairly quickly. The parsnips were the most interesting thing that I planted last year, partly because I had never grown them before and also because I had no idea how they were doing underground. Last week I emptied out a pot of them and there they were, short and small but definately parsnips. It was a treat to roast and eat them. More are in a raised bed and hopefully they will grow larger as the days warm up. I need to get last year's plants out of the beds to make way for this year's spring and summer plantings. I am excited to have so much over-winter and it is hard for me to remove any living and producing plant. We shall see how ruthless I can be.
Tiny garlic and chives are coming up. A peek of tarragon returning means that the soil is warming up and time to get that compost turned into the beds.
One detail I learned about parsnips is that rich soil makes for hairy parsnips...now I need to create a lean soil area, not sure how to accomplish that!

Winter without cover

December gardening was a pleasure this year, warmish, dry without wind and little rain. I covered the beds with leaves from Liz's garden and what I could get from the birch next door. I also completely covered the beds that I planted with garlic and shallots. Most of the leaves stayed in place and were starting to break down by the time the snow arrived January 18th. And did it arrive, first snow was only a few inches and the little garlic tops were sticking out of the snow. Then more snow to about 8-10 inches covered everything. The Lacinato kale was the only thing showing above the snow, that and the rosemary. I didn't cover my bay tree so we shall see how it fairs. It is on the porch close to the house but not enough to make much of a difference in temperature once it is 27 degrees out.
I hadn't trimmed the lavender and hope that it isn't damaged by having flowers out in the snow.
I still have/had mustard, kale, leeks, beets, parsnips and arugula in the raised beds that are now covered in snow. It will be interesting to see how they are once the storm has blown by. I intended to cover those plants but did not get it done. It would be helpful to have a system set up here so that I don't try to figure it out when the bad weather comes.
Very happy to be able to gather thyme, rosemary and parsley from the snow beds. The bit of freshness and green to our warm food is a very nice thing.
The snow is melting slowly now.....