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Monday, February 21, 2011

Waiting for spring

We had a great time staying with you and Doug this weekend.  Very wintery and snowglobey at your treehouse.  Tubing was, well okay, a little anticlimactic.  But I have some good mental photos of the 4 of us hanging on to each other inner tubes and flailing down the not-very-steep slope fake screaming all together.  Doug made up for it the next day by taking Carlos and me down a steep hillside of fresh powder.  Screaming for real on that one.

Back in Seattle last night, 45 degrees felt really warm.  We are entering the long, wet limbo period that counts for spring in the pacfic northwest.  Not very cold, but not warm either.  Slug heaven.  My hellebores are blooming pink in the back yard and the lilies and crocuses are sending up shoots.  We still have a long way to go before summer, but the garden can support cool weather veggies.

Inventory:  overwintered broccoli, corn salad (mache), escarole, swiss chard, collard greens.  Not a whole lot of any one of those, though. 

Time to start thinking about starting seeds and prepping the garden soil.  My current concern is symphylans.  Apparently, in the pacific northwest, almost any garden plot more than 3 years old becomes totally infested, because they love the soil fertility.  I think I have them.  I know I've seen tiny white centipede things in my soil.  Any advice?  Since I have raised beds, moving my garden plot would be a real hassle . . .