As mentioned in my last post, we’ve hit that time of the spring when the garden is coming alive faster than I can keep up with. There’s lots to do, and my enthusiasm after a long winter matches my to-do list. I’ve already suffered from a bad case of “can’t stop gardening even though I am in intense physical pain-itis.” I suspect that this will happen a few more times before the season is out. I can’t even conjure up sympathy for myself at this point. I know better, but do it anyway.

Clockwise from Top Left:

1. The garden today, April 22, 2015. We went out and procured mulch last weekend because the pathways had started to erode quite badly. This involved renting a Smart Car carshare. I initially planned to go to FoodShare where they had a big pile of mulch that can be taken from freely. However, I wasn’t sure if it was still there and even if it was I realized that the time involved in collecting the mulch into bags and the mess it would leave in the car would mean that the FREE mulch would end up costing too much money in car rental time (they charge by the minute and hour), so we just went to a garden shop and loaded the car up with pre-bagged mulch. It’s not my ideal and to make matters worse it always looks nuclear orange for a few weeks, even though it is not dyed. Yuck. Of course Smart Cars have the cargo room of a roller skate, so we were only able to do about half of the garden. I expect to make a second trip this weekend in order to finish the job.

2. Last week I posted an image of a small raised bed that holds stinging nettle and radicchio that overwintered from last fall. It’s amazing to see how much they have progressed. I can start snipping a little here and there, but I’m holding back since I still have dried nettle (for herbal tea) left over from last year that I am trying to use up.

3. In the first photo you can see that there are a few ramshackle greenhouses set up in the garden. This is what’s growing underneath. GREENS! There are also radishes. The soil is warmed up enough now that the greenhouses are not required. However, we’ve hit a cold snap this week so I’m keeping them on to speed up the growing process a touch. I need my homegrown springtime salads!

4. Last night I posted this photo to social media of the baby tomatoes that are currently gestating underneath lights in the basement. Photos of tomato seedlings always seems to set off a chorus of, “OH no, am I too late?” from gardeners living in my zone. My photos sometimes paint a picture that I am a perfect and on time gardener. The fact is that I start my tomato seeds in succession, beginning with the dwarf varieties and finishing with the indeterminates. I start the dwarves early because they stay small for a long time and don’t take up a ton of space under the lights. I am almost always late with some of the indeterminates. This year is no different. I get caught up with work, life, and other things and somehow there’s always a few or several varieties that are sown after the seed-starting schedule demands. It’s not the end of the world. I’ve been late every year of my gardening life and every year things manage to fall into place. A few plants may start out smaller than the others, but they get caught up. Sometimes they produce a little late and my harvest of ripe tomatoes isn’t as big as it could have been. Sometimes the weather is lousy and even the on-time tomatoes don’t produce as early or as well as they should. I say all of this to say that even if you think you are late, it is sometimes worth it to go ahead and try anyways. Seed sowing schedules are there as guidance but it’s not the end of the world if you don’t follow them to the letter. Don’t sweat it!