Sowing seeds and pulling weeds

Having had so much time every winter with little to do of interest and no garden to work, I was forced to pay attention to my job.  Darn.  Now I really have to manage my time well in order to keep my pace with Mother Nature.  She’s not going to wait for me to catch up.  Shoots have already sprouted up from the ground, grass look green again, and weed seedlings show their little faces and remind me that it’s the time to sow my seeds outdoors.   I keep checking weather reports in spring like sports people check scores.  What I can or cannot do depends on the kindness of the weather.

I put Spinach, Arugula, Green Onions, Swiss Chard, Radish, French Radish and Pak Choi seeds in the garden three weeks ago.   Bill loves Radish; they are all his to munch on. The Sugar Snap Peas were in the ground a week earlier than that.  They had stretched their roots out pretty fast between the wet paper towels that I had to put them in to start them.  So I put them in the ground in the morning before going to work.  In a few weeks I can stir fry the young shoots.  I can hardly wait.

The chili peppers are already over an inch tall.  But, it’s going to be a while before they can be outside.  Yesterday was 70 degree so I took their tray out to get “real” sunlight and heat instead of light from bulbs and heat from heat mats.  I left them outside today since it’s going to be above 50 degree.  The Kaffir Lime seedlings can also stay out.

I started to move the tropical plants up from the basement.  If we have steady heat like this for a few weeks we should see the Jasmine and Orange Jasmine flowers.  We added two hardy Jasmines (Jasminum Offcinale) to our collection this year and hope that I can keep them outside during winter months.

Naturally I asked Bill to help me get the pots up the basement stairs.  As he does every year, he clutched at his chest, faked a cardiac arrest, danced around the patio twice, tripped over a chair, fell into the wood pile and finally begged for a back massage claiming it would somehow save his life.  No Golden Globe there but the performance is worth the price of admission.   I guess paying a bribe once in a while wouldn’t hurt.