Spring arrives!

As it often does, spring came hard this weekend. On Good Friday, there was 12 inches of snow in the yard and I had to shovel my way to the fire pit to burn off some clippings from last year.

By Sunday, it was +18, the snow was almost gone, and we were eating on the back deck in shorts. This meant we could start on a few garden projects. First up was a trip to the equine centre to get some compost for the bed we'll be planting corn in this spring. Note for next year: white pants are not ideal for shovelling compost.

We're still likely eight weeks away from planting corn, so we just dumped the two loads of compost on the bed and spread it out. I'll spent some time turning it in a bit as the ground thaws more.

Jess started tomato seedlings in her room about three or four weeks ago and they were ready tp transplant into containers so we did that one evening. This year, she's labelled the tomatoes, which will making gardening a bit less of a mystery. A few stupice and blush tomatoes, then a bunch of larger red and black tomatoes. She plans to start basil next. She'll be off to work in Banff again this summer so I'll be responsible for getting these into the ground.

I spent a lot of time cleaning up matted leaves and generally tidying the yard. I also fiddled with the water bucket arrangements (going to try a chain drip this year) but need the ground to thaw some more to level the wooden bases. Only a few early tulips have appeared.

The raspberries on the south fence line should produce this year (finally!). I'm going to top seed with clover to try and cover some of the bald patches.

The eastern side of the fence (facing the alley) had thawed enough that I put up a pea trellis. Eventually I'll plant scarlet runners here.

Until then, we can enjoy some early peas (ate the fancy new gardening knife stuck in the ground). I also went out and bought some more supplies for more elaborate trellising for melons and squash in the back yard but the ground needs to dry out a bit before I start to assemble that.

I'm committed to more frequent posting this year, with goal of 20. We'll see. The new neighbours are also talking about doing a garden in their yard so I'm keen to see what they do.