Spring Will Prevail

Well, I tried being all perky and optimistic, which is not my real personality, I assure you. Unfortunately, my performance was unconvincing to the gods and did not bring Spring any earlier. The garden is still covered with snow and the ground is too cold and wet to plant peas. But there is hope. This last storm went south of us and all we saw were a few flurries this morning. The sun continues to increase in strength and starting Friday, we are supposed to have at least a week of 50F temperatures. That should dispatch most of the snow, except the enormous plow bank at the end of my driveway.

 

My Meyer lemon is greatly enjoying the rays of the stronger sun reflected off the snow I didn’t bother to shovel off the deck. It is now approaching full bloom and looks happy, despite the loss of a few leaves this winter.

 

My lettuces and brassicas have sprouted and are doing fine under the grow light. The L-shaped set of barren blocks on the right were seeded with cilantro, but I finally realized that cilantro does poorly as starts and needs to be direct sown. So those cubes have been re-purposed and now have seeds for Orange Fantasia and Pink Flamingo chards, which may take a while to germinate.

 

I chose not to change the planting schedule for tomatoes and peppers,  so I have tomato and pepper seeds started in 3/4” cubes on the heat mat. When they germinate and develop their first set of true leaves, I will up-pot them to 2 inch soil cubes. I think once we get past this cycle of storms, spring will come quickly and we will be planting tomatoes by Memorial Day as usual.