3rd week of March 2009

We are seeing more signs of spring - tulip and daffodil leaves peeking through the ground, children wanting to go barefoot and the peacock regularly fanning his tail and rattling his feathers. Unfortunately for him, the chickens are quite unimpressed by his display. Speaking of the chickens, their egg yolks are turning deeper orange again as they add fresh greens to their diet plus they have finally increased their laying some.

I've put several white barrel halves in place to warm the soil and will start planting Sugar Ann peas and beets this week under the barrels. Indoors, my seed order finally arrived and I had a planting blitz to start flats of parsley, broccoli, cabbage, salad greens and lemon calendula (that I'm hoping will bloom in time for a June wedding.) The burst of warm weather has stimulated all the overwintered greens in coldframes into growth mode again. We are picking abundant spinach, mache and arugula along with the first garlic scallions and chives for baked potatoes. It's amazing how powerful the sun is, it was up to 110 degrees in the greenhouse one day before I got the door opened to cool things down.

In the FEDCO seed order letter they mentioned sales were increased 30% over last year and they needed to add employees. Garden seed companies may be the most "recession-proof" businesses around. I just got two more calls from friends this week to help them with garden planning. I do this on a bartering basis and have ended up with a bag of wonderful cloth diapers, services to do a coldframe video and other great swaps. I even had the opportunity to share some gardening tips (and some worms!) with Robin Swoboda of "That's Life" on Fox 8 (Cleveland, OH) during her filming at Lehmans. The segments were very short but hopefully will offer inspiration to some new gardeners to give growing a whirl this year. The show is scheduled to air on Friday, March 27 at 10am.