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A few early garlic cultivars were planted in a raised bed last November, to see if they will mature earlier than those in the ground. I added a loose covering of row cover last week to keep them just a tiny bit warmer, and to minimize soil compaction from heavy rains. The fabric is suspended...

We made rice with some fresh spinach last night. The spinach was started last fall and left outdoors all winter in a bin on the deck, under cover of the roof and out of the rain. A couple of weeks ago it took off growing, and is a vibrant green. There is a second bin with mustard greens; that...

Yesterday was like a lawn mowing festival here, with all of the neighbours making the first mowing of the season. It was the first day that really felt like spring, with warm sunshine for trimming and weeding. The lawns and gardens look fabulous now. Rain arrives late tonight, and will stick...

Love the image of emptying a pillowcase on Halloween night-- so very exciting heirloom gal. Here's hoping for a long, warm summer of gardening. ☀️

At times, yes. Having never done this before it sure makes for an interesting learning process.

Steve, if you make it over to Spain be sure to spend a few days in Segovia. We were there about five years ago, and the Roman aqua-ducts were mind blowing. It is impossible to imagine the scale of this structure without seeing it in person. That and the tour of Toledo cathedral, south of...

The first camelia blossom of the season.

Some of my early sweet peas got nipped by the bitter cold in February. Someone suggested that the frozen tips are not a big deal, as new shoots will appear in their place. I was kind of skeptical about that, but sure enough they were correct. In most cases new shoots are beginning to poke up...

According to Frank Morton crosses will stand out with marked differences. Red x Green = crosses will be half as red as what is typical Green x Red = crosses will be half as green, with red on the crosses Red x Red = even more red than any of the parents These photos are of a red leaf lettuce...

Gorgeous. They resemble pure white orchids.

The second half of February has been more wet than not, with 17cm(almost 7") of rain falling. Now we are in a dry, sunny stretch for several days and it is almost springlike. Sunglasses weather! Warm and just beautiful, with crocuses blooming and birds singing. I had forgotten about what...

The ranuncula corms pre-sprouted in the hoop house are finally ready to plant out, so I am madly weeding the garden to make room for them. One batch was in a clear acrylic bin, which offered an interesting glimpse of the root development taking place beneath the soil.

An explosion of crocuses!

Ewe. Are. Amazing.

Finally got 64 ranunculas out of the bins I was holding them in, and planted them in the ground.

The first blossoms of spring.

Early February was unusually cold, and in spite of that it looks like my large bins of pre-sprouted ranunculas placed in an unheated hoop house with row cover survived the cold. They've been outside for a whole month, and now they are starting to put up bright green foliage so I removed the row...

Thank you for sharing your journey with us Phaedra. It is such a a pleasure to read your posts, and to see your beautiful creations. You are such an inspiration!

We have a week of heavy rain ahead of us, so I moved some ranunculus from small sprouting containers to much larger containers close to the house so they could spread out a bit. Five went in the ground as well, as test subjects to see how they fare with heavy rain. Pretty amazing root...

Interesting. I never would have imagined that there would be such great disparity in the timing of the coldest day of the year.