There’s a lot of cleanup work in the yard in the spring, before it’s time to grow things. Winter is a rough season here. I let this pretty pampas grass stand thru the winter and it lays down in the snow, but stands back up then in all but the worst storms. In the spring, before new growth starts, I break it off, so it can start over.

There’s dead wood, small branches, from the big maple trees, that needs to be picked up and taken to the woods so my guy can mow the grass easy later.

Right now there are dandelions to pick for my 2 lizards, just a thing I do every day in the spring.

I grow a few things for them, in raised beds out back. Arugula, chicory, and mustard greens are all good supplemental greens to add to their regular diets of endive and escarole. Dandelion greens are ok but they’re not wild about them. They are just wild about the flowers, which are like drugs for lizards……want MORE…..

It’s time to get pots of good potting soil ready to start seeds for tomatoes (mortgage lifters, purple cherry tomatoes, and small determinant ones that are so good in soup, etc, in the winter.) And peppers: purple jalapenos, and several types of long sweet peppers. I’ll start them about 4/1 with grow lights in my kitchen. By our safe date, 5/16, they’ll be big enough to plant out in the ground.

On that date I’ll also plant King of the Garden Lima beans. Their plants are so big and strong that I’d swear they are the plant that Jack and the Beanstalk was written about. And Straight 8 cucumbers.

Squash….they come later. Because you have to fool the squash bugs! They lay their eggs about 6/15, and if there are not good squash plants in an area, enough to support their hatchlings, they won’t lay the eggs in that area. So if I plant the squash seeds about 6/1, I can avoid the thousands, literally, of squash bug hatchlings in another month. 2 or 3 groups of their eggs can produce enough small bugs to take down a healthy squash plant…..in one day! Been thru that, and learned the secret to fool the adult bugs. And they are the ugliest little buggers, ohh.

Gardening all starts with ideas in your head. But in a while, you get to get your hands dirty, in the soil, understanding the magic of the earth,