Spring Weekends are here!

It's spring. I will be planting peppers, ground cherries, and tomato seeds tomorrow in the glorious sun, putting them on my new heat pad, and praying (peppers will be small and late this year, but oh well). Then I'll be working my newly-tilled garden over with a broad fork, probably bringing some soil over and forking it into the beds, adding some wood ash (in lieu of lime) and maybe even going to pick up finished manure somewhere or leaf mold, if I can find it. Then planting peas and setting up pea trellising. Definitely going for a long walk at my old house and picking a ton of ramps.

Hopefully I'll be pickling beets and root veggies, and maybe even ramps as well.

And, when it all comes down to it, I need to to get all my veggies out of storage and have a Thanksgiving-in-May party to finish the root veggies - though i think I'll plant some parsnips and carrots just for the hell of it - they're biennials and will therefore flower this year. Umbel-shaped flowers are particularly good at attracting beneficial insects into the garden, though the juice from parsnip stalks is very caustic - so be careful not to get it on your skin! I'm sure the parsnips and carrots are both hybrids and therefore I won't be able to save seed (the carrots aren't worth saving seed from anyway - they've gotten horribly woody), but it'll still be a fun little science experiment.

Now it's just a matter of getting out my farming shirts (long-sleeve button-downs) and my big garden hat, and getting to work!