Happy new gardening year! It was a green December around here, we only got one snow that lasted a couple days before it was melted off. Rain otherwise. Rather uncanny. But it has turned properly colder now.

Got no idea what's going on in the caps, haven't opened them. The rest of the yard looks like it's still sleeping. Been lots of small birds flocking about in the last couple weeks, but there seems to be a bit less ground rodent activity than the usual for now. Sitting on a bunch of wild wintersowing seed since it's been so nice out, so probably won't sow till late this month or into the next.

Indoors has been some microgreens and a couple rounds of germination testing. I had some trouble last year with squash and melon and wasn't sure if it was due to the seed. I haven't gotten fresh in a while. So tests before sending off seed orders- just a couple smaller ones this year.

Well we're in store for a deep freeze this week (like many of you) so I'll be picking as many collards as I can before it hits. Might even get a little snow too. Already picked the last of the carrots so collards are now the only game in town. I noticed today that the daffodils are poking up from the soil. Finally took the seed inventory, got my buy list in my wallet.

Yep, day one of three for cold... erm, effing cold. Then it goes back to normal just damn it's cold, lol. Tests are done, weeded out a few packets of seed. Sitting on a couple orders now, debating. It's mostly flower seeds this year. Puttered around in the porch a bit, zipping up some plants in their little greenhouse. Moved one of them to the kitchen window so the lights are spread out. Remembered to bring the lime tree in, poor thing.

I was going to post this after we came back from our summer home in the BC bush, I thought that John would get a chuckle from my varmint story. Well, then sadly he was gone. Because we don't have easy access to fresh anything I have learned to take lettuce starts up with me. My old washtubs of lettuce were doing beautifully and then a nighttime marauder came along (twice). What survived was then protected like Ft. Knox.

After a PACKRAT made its raid

They lay their "harvest" out to dry for the winter

We've certainly had whiplash weather here! First we had a warm spell, then we had the Arctic blast with temps down to 12F which is really unusual here. Had 9" of rain this month, normal is 5". Now we have the record warmth and a Pineapple express headed our way (the weather guys can call it "an atmospheric river" if they want to, but we know what it is). Before the cold spell, and awful east wind, I had lettuce, spinach and sprouting broccoli in the garden.

It's delightful to hear from fellow garden enthusiasts! My garden is thriving thanks to the recent rain and mild temperatures. The tulips are beginning to bloom, and the vegetable patch is showing promising signs of growth.