Here was my garden under a foot of snow on January 31, 2009. I'm hoping that under all of that snow, the strawberries and garlic are hibernating and saving up energy to grow once the weather warms up.
Obviously, the garden is on hiatus right now and has been for several months. But...GREAT JOY...the end is near. Paul James, the host of Gardening by the Yard, is keeping me going with episodes about garden preparations and planning in the end of winter. Yesterday, I watched a recent episode that discussed French kitchen gardens (a.k.a. a potager). I was struck by how this style is so close to my own garden. I plan to look more into this concept and maybe turn my little American kitchen garden into a French kitchen garden!
I also sat down yesterday with a cup of coffee, my calendar, and a printout of the vegetable planting guide for Indiana created by the Purdue Horticultural Cooperative Extension Service. I began jotting down on my calendar when and what I will be planting this year. It looks like I need to start some of my first seeds (cabbage) in just a couple of weeks. Last year my seed-starting efforts didn't work out very well. Since then I've done lots of reading and am ready to tackle the challenge again. We'll see how it goes.
In the meantime, I'm looking at seed catalogs and trying to decide which varieties to try this year. I'll be posting more as garden season gears up again.
Today's local weather:
High temp: 42 F
Low temp: 33 F
