Garden Fever

Who knew you could get sweaty working in the garden.....in January. Can you believe it hit 75 degrees on Saturday? That's crazy talk! It was like a little slice of spring dangled in your face, and today it got yanked away. It's snowing like crazy today. But we sure enjoyed that rare day of spring weather. I have to admit it made me have garden fever. I've been planning for this years garden in my head for a few weeks now. It's like this mini obsession for me. It only got worse yesterday when the Burpee catalog came in the mail. I spent last night ogling all the new varieties of vegetables, circling all the things I want to order and try this year in the garden. There is something circled on each page almost. Oh decisions decisions. My favorite thing I found in that catalog? This:

It's called the Sunforest Mix and it's in the Burpee Catalog. I am so excited to try this! I could see Wesley really enjoying this.Can't you just imagine a big block of these with a path leading to a play area in the middle. Super cool.

Every Saturday, like clock work, I clean out the goat pen. It consists of a bale of straw and a package of pine shavings. It all gets put on the wheel barrow and then dumped back on the garden. I've been doing this since the beginning of December so you can imagine how much mulch is accumulating on the garden. My gardening bible, Ruth Stout's No-Work Garden Book, talks about the glories of mulching in the fall and having beautiful rich soil that is ready to plant seeds within in the spring. No rototilling needed. So I'm trying it. So far there's at least 12 inches of straw all over the garden. I've been dumping it on the grass as well, as I'm extending the garden this year (gotta be bigger!). So yesterday I looked underneath some old hay that had been there since November and the grass is gone leaving this rich, black, crumbing soil. This mulching stuff works! I'm pumped to plant in the spring (and not have to use the rototiller). According to Ruth you just make rows with string and push away the mulch. Sow your seeds, let them grow a bit then push that mulch back around the plants. Super easy.

Well, back to obsessing over the seed catalog.