We have several beautiful warm days coming before we go back to some colder weather again for a while; normal PA spring routines.  I’m always like a little animal and can’t wait to get out and dig in the dirt the first warm day. Those teeny early crocus are always the first thing to come thru the ground here, and I always watch for them and they make me happy.  And an early warm day is also a good excuse to hang out sheets on the line for the first time to have that fresh outside smell. Now everything outside is brown and gray, but soon green will pop out everywhere followed by flowering trees and spring bulb flowers. Then after that, on we go to gardening!

We’re  going to grow more herbs this year, cos I like so many of them for cooking, plus we’re going to experiment with canning some pickles. Dylan made refrigerator pickles last year, and between his recipe and some others I’ve gathered, we might get some good pickles canned for winter. https://sarasinart.net/2015/08/15/dylan-made-pickles/

We have some top soil and peat moss ready for me to add to this raised herb bed.  I put the frame together around my wonderful sage plant that’s now several years old. (I picked a lot of sage leaves last year and dried them to use in recipes during the winter, especially sausage.)  I’ll mix in some good organic fertilizer that gardeners on a FB gardening page swear by. And some peat moss to loosen the soil up some for little herb roots.

I can’t plant for almost 2 months, but I can have this ready to plant.  Things are going to start to happen quick here: spring coming and the need to have things ready, and my son and (almost) DIL will get married 5/1, so that will take some time to help get things ready.

We’ll plant some chives, cos I love those and had some that bit  the dust last summer for some reason.  Also, parsley, which I also had but it’s a biannual and I didn’t let it seed itself last year.  Then tarragon, thyme, dill, and basil all from seed. Dylan wants savory and marjoram and I can’t seem to find seeds for those so I’ll have to get plants at the green house later.  Maybe the seed companies know that those things are harder to start from seed, cos I have looked 3 places and didn’t find them.

I put some concrete pavers along side the bed so they will help to keep weeds down and give us a place to walk between the herb bed and some pots that will have mostly hot peppers in.  Eliza’s purple jalapenos, for one. https://sarasinart.net/2015/07/02/the-garden-is-benefiting-from-lots-of-rain/

We won’t plant any green jalapenos this year cos we have 5 purples planned and they are prolific producers, taste as good as the green ones, and plus they just make you smile when you see the pretty purple flowers and purple peppers. Also in these pots will go regular Thai chilies and two new ones we got seeds for and are a little scary: scorpions and ghost peppers. We’ll  be careful with handling them cos their heat is supposedly some of the hottest there is.

Here’s the bed, all ready to go.

Spring fever has definitely hit me.  I can’t do anything yet but get things ready, but there’s a lot of getting ready to do while this little spring tease lasts.