PLANTING TIME

All of a sudden, it was officially spring. I checked the soil in the barrels and decided it was time to plant the coolest crops: snap peas, petit pois peas, radishes, and lettuces. It turns out I probably could have started the broccoli raab and the black garbanzos too, but now they will have to wait until I get back into planting mode the first weekend of April. It will be time to see if the overwintering Walla Walla onions are ready for harvest then too!

Well...sometimes compost happens and sometimes it doesn't quite. It turns out birds really ARE messy eaters. At least half of what seemed to be empty sunflower hulls were actually full and viable seeds, and since I'd placed them in the barrels as compost they are now very happily sprouting. So Stu and I are out there every couple of days, plucking them out and laughing.

The front yard looks good, largely thanks to the overwintered pansies and the daffodils. Of the annual wildflower seeds I'd broadcast in the fall, so far the big show has been the baby blue eyes. They are forming thick, low carpets of green with their delicate little flowers all over the yard. There seems to be another, lower, more succulent leafed type of wildflower plant following closely and we are waiting to see what it turns out to be. Meanwhile most of the perennials are leafing out beautifully, the native "beach strawberry" has big white flowers; a few are still dormant and a couple I suspect are dead. They will not be officially pronounced until May.

Photos of the front yard were posted a few minutes on my Flickr page.