I have to say, what I really should be doing is mowing the grass on the allotment! It just hasn't stopped growing this winter. And the birds have thrown the mulch all over the place so that could do with being tidied up. Inside I've started favas, coriander and parsley. I'll get some lettuce going soon. No lights, they just go in the glass porch.

Chitting my seed potatoes, watching out for germination (patrinia punctiflora today), pruning - I have to get a headstart on this as | have large (enormous) roses and a heap of fruit trees and bushes. I am doing a bit of seed starting this week (have also done parsley, Floral). The conditions for cabin fever rarely arise here (rain will do it) so there are plenty of things to be getting on with...but at my February leisurely pace.

I got cabin fever at the weekend. Snow on our steep hilly street put me off going out .... for two days. All gone now.

I'm winter sowing and just put in a new vegetable garden extension where I hope to grow rhubarb.

I cut 3 ft lengths of bamboo to use as plant labels - an idea stolen from Untermeyer Garden. I will not lose my new plants this year!

Thanks for the heads up, floral (no pun intended!) I'll start collecting fake flowers to stick in each one!

Another option is Christmas ornaments with the hanger removed if you have some with large enough openings. I have a set of lovely glass stake toppers made by a local glass blower and usually add one each summer from a craft fair we attend.

I'm getting ready to start working on new bed plant design. Have a scale drawing I'll fill in with plant placement - just a general sketch of focal points and rough idea of plant placement. Of course it'll go all to heck once I get out there and start planting LOL! But I really do need to map out the shrubbery and focal points and try to get that right the first time.

Also germinating some seeds; too early for most stuff, but I did start some annual geranium seeds - they take a long time from seed - and a couple other things that are ok to start this early. The seed starting really ramps up end of Feb into March -- I've got my week-by-week timeline all mapped out already.

I don't think I'd use glass tree baubles. Too fragile. I wouldn't want one shattering in my face as I leant over a plant. It's easily done. You're focusing on a plant at ground level and you completely miss the cane top. I speak from experience but luckily only scratched my face. If you play with clay you could make some of these http://littlebrickhouseclayworks.blogspot.com/2012/08/garden-cane-toppers-mini-production-line.html

Aha, I also speak from experience and bear the scars to prove it. A small, perfectly circular outline of a bamboo cane, fetchingly decorating my right breast...where, attempting to poke a dahlia stake into stony ground (by leaning my entire weight on it), the bamboo crumbled and collapsed, stabbing me in a tender spot...but worse, as I hurtled groundwards, I had enough presence of mind to throw myself sideways, avoiding crushing the dahlias...but landing teeth first on top of my concrete block coldframe. I lay snivelling, wishing I was unconscious, while the collie witlessly licked my (bleeding) face. I did find one of my teeth some days later.

Floral, yes. I was thinking of the “shatterproof” AKA plastic, though my glass cane toppers are heavy weight and so aren’t a breakage danger as long as I don’t drop them on a rock.

OMG Camp, I can see this graphically in detail. Bummer. Bamboo broke my opal, not my teeth.

Wintertime is not a time for me to staY inside. We have a different kind of winter. No bugs and no snakes and no 100º+ so heavy garden chores are much more pleasant. It is time to do my woods restoration.. That means chainsawing thinning out of control Mountain ash Juniper. Creation of slash berms on slopes, wildlife piles, protect young red oak, madrone and escarpment cherry trees. clean out catalog nests in bird boxes. take photos and create a long report for the county to keep my tax exempt. I have been working on it for 4 days. Tomorrow I need to complete the report and get it to my overlords. I live in fear till it is done.

I did get some seeds planted the other day.

my winter project is making a gravel sifter. Here in the high desert, most of the yards are mulched with gravel. wind blows sand into the gravel, which grows weeds. organic material also builds up in the gravel. So what to do? Some people put another layer of gravel on top, which seems silly to me. The other option is to remove the gravel, sift out the sand and organics (possibly multi-step sifting), then replace the gravel. Yes, a lot of work.

February is also the time for winter cleanup, pruning, and starting seeds. Lots of work to be done!

How big is your gravel. . Are you using a basic screen over a barrel? That does sound grueling.

My gravel is mostly 3/8" gravel but there are some areas of larger gravel. I wanted to build a trommel, but that would take way too much room in the garage when not in use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YaQNthIFzI

My neighbor had an idea that he built when he was working on his gravel, and I basically re-did his design, using old rollerblade wheels. There are some design improvements that can be made, as it still requires lifting a heavy frame filled with heavy gravel, and dumping out the gravel, but it has a fairly small storage space. I could probably at least put handles on the sifting frame to make it easier and some kind of a stop so that the frame doesn't roll off the wheels accidentally.

I managed to get in some decent time at the allotment (turning the compost, cutting the grass) yesterday, but rain all day and 6Nations rugby on the TV today...so knitting an allotment themed beret (beetroot and leafage).

I have one area of baccharis neglecta removal. I love some of its common names. Consumption weed , poverty weed, Roosevelt weed. Otherwise, I have done most of the cedar thinning.

And then picked up and the slash moved downhill to catch all our soil during our famous Texas downpours. I have got my path back to a walkable situation. I was inundated with thousands of birds yesterday.

This could be done a lot better but I am usually moving way too fast since I have to treat 1.5 acres every year and I always wait till the last moment to start. I leave you with me posing in some harvest jewelry. Last night I had roasted fractals for dinner.

“Roasted fractals” made my day. They are beautiful, aren’t they.