March Madness

So there I was... bent over the soil tub in the cold frame in 28 degree weather with snowflakes landing in my ear... wishing I had a potting bench... especially if it were in a warm greenhouse.  Gardening just isn't fun when the weather is unseasonably cold.  Plans are easy to put off just one more week.  I think the planting season is going to be a little late this year anyway.  But I have two flats of pots filled and ready.  The dirt in the tub somehow managed to be warm and welcoming despite the brutal winter.

Eggplant seeds start first, followed by peppers then tomatoes two weeks after the eggplants.  Even though I've sworn I'm going to start tomato seeds in the cold frame, I think I am going to do one flat in the house anyway since the grow op is going to be set up.   My eggplant seeds are old and I've put them on damp paper towels in the warm spot on top of the freezer.  Whatever germinates this week will be planted in pots under lights.  The Purple Beauty pepper seeds are new so they go directly into pots next week.  The week after that tomatoes get started in egg carton trays then transplanted deeper into pots.  And then... weather willing, it will be time for lettuce and nasturtiums in the cold frame and peas in the raised beds.

This is how dirt days should be enjoyed....

Me (2 yrs old) sitting on the steam pipes under a bench in the geranium house with English ivy above.

I was always playing in the dirt.  There were dirt bins in every green house and they were always full of my toys.  Usually tractors and shovels, but I had a large Marx farm set handed down from my mother and if there was so much as a wheelbarrow full of dirt to be had, I began farming.  Maybe this would be more fun if I got some farm animals out and scattered them in my dirt tub?