Spring?

Yes: when the mud starts flowing, it’s Spring.

It’s about time for a gardening post, don’cha think? Even though I’m getting my annual end-of-the-winter cold and feel pretty crappy, I was still chomping at the bit to go up to the barn and clean out the greenhouse yesterday. For crying out loud, the thermomulator said 40 degrees!

I didn’t get to it until early evening, right after I walked The Sociopath and before I started dinner. Given that my greenhouse is single-paned glass, I finally gave up heating it in the winter. Oh, I tried everything: bubble wrap insulation, Refletex (or whatever that silver bubble stuff is called), shrink wrapped film, plastic, passive heat (water filled 40 gallon drums painted black). You know I gave it my obsessive all.

And I also gave it most of my money.

Even with all my tricks, it still cost a lot to heat it, so I gave up.

Now, my program is to keep whatever I am trying to overwinter in the greenhouse until the sub-zero temps hit. Then I move everything into the garage, where it sits until the sub-zero temps are over —  without light or water, at about 33-45 degrees.

I always screw it up.

This year, I failed to get the plants out of the greenhouse when the temps dipped into the -20 range. Amazingly, I only lost two plants, albeit two of my favorites — the two 5-foot tall upright rosemary plants. Boo. There is still a chance that they will come back, but as of yesterday, they were looking pretty crispy.

I’m sure I will continue to battle low temps as we wade our way through March. Why, just this morning it was only 7 degrees! I do have a small heater in there, but the energy miser is resistant to turning it up much above freezing.

[The energy miser is me. Just ask anyone who comes to my house during daylight hours during the winter.]

Anyway, I swept the greenhouse out, being that it is pretty much a giant home for the fat cats all winter long. They while the days away in the sun with my giant garden toad,

making a mess, whittling away the legs of the benches.

…Eventually these redwood posts will simply collapse. But that is probably better than scratching the other stuff in the barn, right?

It was fun to drag all the plants back into the sunshine and water them. Just look at the rosemary plants — all ready to bloom!

It amazes me that they make it through the dark winter in the barn. No light, no water. Even the transplants from last fall look pretty good. Nice and green.

Soon I’ll be filling the spaces with little pots of seedlings.

So that I can forget to water them and throw them away.

Nice to know that there is someone out there more disorganized than you, isn’t it?