Sometime in January, I generally recover my love of the garden.  In early winter, I relish the ability to loll in front of a fire reading and writing, but before long, I've forgotten what it's like to fall behind on weeding in a blisteringly hot July.  I look outside at the snow and ice and wish I could plant something now!

In some years, I do manage to begin planting on the first of February --- lettuce under quick hoops.  But this year, even the mule garden is still under quite a bit of snow, and I know the soil temperature hasn't risen above freezing yet.

Instead, I tide myself over by checking on my germination test.  The only seeds that didn't want to sprout were broccoli, parsley, and peppers, although some others showed reduced germination percentages.  (I'll just seed thicker.)

Rather than tossing the sprouted peas, I stuck them in a pot to feed me tendrils on our salads in February.  So I guess I did plant something after all.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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