Icy Mid-April Update

Well, here we are in mid-April…or are we?

Our driveway (aka the ice rink)

Icy Sedum

Can't deny the beauty, though

We just came through 3 days of hibernation.  There was on & off freezing rain the entire weekend, culminating with an ice storm that started on Sunday evening.

Spring? Hello...anybody home?

This spring weather, if you can call it that, is driving me a little crazy.  We are looking at low, single digit highs around here which, for my friends in the US, translates to temps in the 30's & 40's.  I've managed to get in a couple of hours when the mercury crept into the upper end of that range but my time outside was cut short by bouts of rain.

1st task of the season is removing the protective layer of straw from the beds

Planning for 2018

Spring is taking it's sweet ol' time getting here this year.

It's still too cold to do anything outside - my thermometer reads -5C/23F right now - and the ground is still frozen solid.  The weather should start to turn soon, though - I have a feeling that I'll be out there by next week (hurray!)

Front walkway on March 13th

Peppery Starts

2017 was a disappointing year for many veg in the garden, not the least of which were the peppers.

The season started off well – in fact, the pepper transplants were the largest and most robust that I had ever grown:

Pepper transplants in 2017

Onions - Three Little Changes

It's the beginning of March, so it's no surprise that the basement grow area has been a busy place lately.  Peppers, eggplant, Browallia, Echinacea, lemon bee balm and a Baker Creek freebie called “Love-in-a-Puff” have been sown.

I’ve also started on the onions & shallots.  This year, I’m only adding one new onion variety to the mix:  Patterson.  William Dam describes this variety as "similar to Copra but with larger bulbs and healthier foliage".  It also says that it's a replacement for Copra which is being discontinued (although I have a feeling they are referring to not supplying it anymore rather than that it’s being discontinued in general).  I am growing Copra this year as well so it will be interesting to see how the two compare.

Brightening Things Up

The new URL is up and running & hopefully all is going smoothly out there in cyberspace.  The thing with tech is that, more often than not, you don’t find out that there’s a problem until after the fact.

I’ve been getting myself organized over the past few weeks – my basement growing area has been sorted out (after being a right mess for most of the winter), seeds have been ordered & received and I even have some green poking out of the soil:

Onion seedlings coming up - this year I'm only starting a small portion in February,
with the majority being seeded in March as part of a timing experiment

There's one change this spring that I am particularly excited about.  My grow lights are undergoing a bit of an upgrade.

A Little Change

I’ve been contemplating a change for a while now.  Not a radical, alter my whole life sort of change, but a small “this has been bugging me for a while” change.  To my name.  No, not MY name – I am and always will be Margaret – but the blog’s name.

“Homegrown – Adventures in my Garden” is a friend that I’m reticent to let go of, like an old pair of shoes.  Well, not really an “old” pair, as far as blogs go, since it's not even 4 years yet, but more like shoes that are well worn in.  And comfortable.  Very comfortable.  I did a lot of umming and ahhing over this blog’s name over the past few months - should I, shouldn’t I - but ultimately, I decided to take the plunge.