Preparing the beds

March 21-22
Layout and dig the central bed.
Double dig the soil and mix spaghum moss and composted cow manure with the last of a bag of chicken poo.
It was 28F this morning and never topped 32.
There are no leaves yet on any of the trees and the sun is still low in the southern sky.
Central bed gets full sun from 9:30am-5pm, with some dappled sun in the early morning. In the evening a pine tree provides a shadow.
The western bed gets full sun from 9:30-4:30pm.
The eastern bed gets full fun from 12pm-5:15pm, with some dappled sun in the morning through the hedges which aren't grown in. There's also a large oak tree next door that provides shade here in the summer.

Seedlings

Started seeds in newspaper pots March 15th. Keep on window sill in south facing window.Started: Snap peas, bibb lettuce, mache, mesclun mix, and swiss chard. I'm hoping to plant these out around April 5th.

It might be snowing, but it's still spring!

Every year I keep a notebook where I dutifully record sun, temperatures, soil amendments, seed types and planting dates. And every winter I lose this notebook. Hopefully, I won't misplace this blog.
Our first pass at vegetable and fruit gardening at our new site west of Boston was not a roaring success. I cleaned out the green tomatoes and early chard in late June to make Fried Green Tomatoes and Oysters Rockefeller for a New Orleans party, and the garden never really recovered after that.
This year, we're expanding the area and paying much more attention to the soil.