Sprung.

The daffodils are glowing in the front garden, but still awol at the tree line. The neighborhood forsythia are positively glorious. There are many magnolia making a show and today I saw my first fully blooming ornamental cherry tree. A couple warm days and boom it's spring.

I celebrated by spending 3 hours in the vegetable garden this morning. Trimming the paths and raking, weeding the beds and preparing the soil, planting the early veggies and watering. Finally the square foot garden is doing what it's supposed to. Since you never walk on the beds and compress the soil, the prep time is much easier. This is my 4th year. The first was very hard because it was breaking ground. The second seemed just as hard, probably because it's so much clay that I had to work in lots more peat plus I did add another small bed. Last year wasn't bad, most of the effort was spent on edging the beds. This year I'm up and running with just a few hours work. It was great.

Nothing as soothing as several hours digging in the dirt. Now I just need to spend a similar bit of time in the flower beds in front. I bought some edging for them, so next weekend it's leaf removal, weeding, edging and mulching there. Hopefully the weather will be more agreeable this year than last. I'd like to clear some of the brambles out of the edge of the woods and maybe put a little shade garden under the group of trees on the side. Nothing new, though until I've tended what I already have.

I followed up my digging with a trip to the bookstore, so now I have some new reads too! Now off to roast a chicken for dinner!