It feels like Spring today. It is warm and really sunny and a substantial amount of the latest snowfall is melting away. I know that it is most likely just a “Fool’s Spring” and that we will still get to experience a punishing number of Winter blasts before it really lets up. Today, though, we are going to clean out the little lean-to greenhouse, tour through the sleeping Gardens and root a flat of Rosemary cuttings.
The other less appealing but necessary chore is the weekly care of all the storage Vegetables. By this time of year our caches need to be attended to on a fairly regular basis. We sort through the Onions checking for any sign that they are breaking dormancy and we use up any Winter Squash or Pumpkins that have developed spots.
Potatoes are sorted every few weeks to ensure no “bad Apples” (Chieftain always seems to store the very best). Bags of Beets and Carrots also need observation as they too eventually begin to feel signs of Spring, growing bright green little leaves and fuzzy root hairs.
The last few Leeks, some Beets and a few Carrots were just dug and it is a nice change of pace to be able to harvest bits and bobs on a mild-ish Winter day. There is, actually, a current trend for “Winter Vegetable Gardening”. While year round harvesting sounds delightful in theory… I just really cannot buy in to any system that would require me to freeze my fingers off to pluck a few leaves of Kale or to harvest some lettuce. A trip to forage in our cold pantry is usually enough of an Arctic adventure for me. Wimpy.
This was also a good day to set out some new Sunflower heads for the birds.
I can never understand the physics that enables a few ounce creature to withstand our bitter Winters. You would think that they would spend most of their time huddled in fluffy bird-piles or at least take shelter in the nifty crocheted birdhouse we made for them.
Nope, there are little birds everywhere flying merrily through the icy blasts. Beautiful little Weirdos.
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