Double digits

Saskatoon hit double digits today - 14 degrees.  There was a hefty wind, but it was still glorious. My deck has been clear of snow for 4 days, so I got out my patio furniture, set up my hammock on a snow-free patch of lawn and  spent the day in the yard. So many of my spring things started this week. I've started hanging my laundry outside, where it drys in a third of the time it takes in the basement. I am biking to work and walking at lunch in the sun.

Today I cleaned out some of my beds and left some others covered in leaves. Most of my beds look like the one on the left - all brown. I have a heavy mulch of leaves and there is no sign of growth. However, the snow has been off them for less than a week and it is still freezing at night.  There is a potential for snow in a couple of days.  I know I should leave those beds alone, but I want to see if anything is up.

When I clean out a bed, I can see some of the green coming up. In this bed there are even a few little green buds!  That makes me so happy. I only cleaned the ones that have south exposure, as they have the most reflected heat off of the walls and can handle a little bit of cold (or so I tell myself).

I spent a lot of my day in the greenhouse. I have rocket and peas transplanted out there and I seeded spinach, cilantro and green onions last week. Anwyn cleaned all the windows for me today, and Mike hung the bubble wrap last Monday.  That means it isn't frosting in there at night, although it still gets below zero. In another couple of weeks it will get warm enough to move my bedding plants out, which is a good thing.  Jodi and Brad are coming to visit and might struggle to sleep with the grow light.

 Today I transplanted the the last of my seed plugs into pots, and I now have the grow table completely full. There isn't room for even one more pot. My tomatoes have been starting to dry out a lot, so they really needed to be transplanted. I am growing sub-arctic maxi, yellow pear and a red cherry, all of which were ready for larger pots, and will outgrow them in another month.