I was out in my garden, trying mightily to find something to tell y'all about and beginning to despair, when I saw this Hellebore blooming! I'd forgotten all about the dear thing, because this is a new garden for me, and I'd planted the Hellebore too close to an existing grass of some sort, that covered the Hellebore up for the summer and fall. What a thrill to see when snow will no doubt fall, heavily, at least one more time before we can really call it spring in these parts.
Hellebore
How forlorn my tiny garden looks in winter! Below we have a shot of almost my entire food producing plot. The three raised beds have garlic, shallots and poppies already planted (protected from cats and dog by green trellises laid over them) and will home a variety of veggies when the time comes. I've started putting the cardboard between the beds to keep weeds down. If you look closely, you can see I have erected hoops on the farthest bed, which will have beets, cabbage, daikon, and carrots planted in it soon, then covered with a cloth to keep them warm and, hopefully, produce a bit earlier than without the hoops and cloth. Then I can get some later crops in that same bed. This will be the first year I have tried this. Wish me luck!
Behind the raised beds are blueberries, asparagus and rhubarb. I took down a silver maple that was in the back left corner, which will give me a good four more hours of sun on most of my growing area. Very exciting! I plan to put a squash tunnel over the stump to use that back area for something while I figure out what to do about the stump.
I wish I had taken a photo an hour later, so you could see just how much snow we got right after I took this shot.
The Big Picture
Inside, big things are happening. I have done a small renovation of my kitchen and the house is an absolute mess. In the middle of that, a wood burning stove I had ordered a few months earlier came and was installed, so the house went from an absolute mess, to an absolute disaster area. But I love my new stove!!!
poppy seeds cold stratifying
My new Vermont Castings Stove!
I have my dog, Hazel, and my cats Patches and Freddy to keep me company in this quiet house. Boy am I ever grateful I have them. Ever since my son died, I hardly ever hear myself speak! Gotta get out more.
Hazel guarding the estate, snow or no
Freddy, taking the sun
images are all mine