It’s at this time every year that the garden itch begins. I’m confined to my house by the cold and wet, staring longingly out the window to the unattended work for me and pray for the warm dry days ahead. I lucked out a few weeks ago and before a heavy storm started I had the opportunity to prune my roses in the front and pare back a few bushes that had gone to the extreme of overgrown last year (if I didn’t know better I’d say there was a chicken coop by my hydrangea at some point). But as the weekend dawned I noticed the beautiful crystals formed on the roof next door and in the shaded spots in my own yard, sighed and turned away, knowing that any love given in my backyard this weekend would be seen as an assault to my plants and I didn’t want to risk traumatizing then freezing my flowering crops. So what does a gardener do this time of year? Well, for me, I check my onions and garlic – it’s the only crops I have growing at the moment, I stare longingly at the seed catalogs as I pour over which new type of crop I’d like to try this year. I endlessly search the internet for gardening ideas and as most of us do I wait. I wait to start my seeds, I wait to turn my soil, I wait to prune (but not too long or I’ll have to wait until next season), and I dream of the Saturday when the sun shines a little brighter and much, much warmer.
