Planning for Summer

It's not that I wouldn't be thrilled to have more down time ahead of me.  You know, leisure time for indoor, close to the wood stove projects.  I'd opt for that in a flash, but time seems to keep marching on at double time.  Even up here near the tundra, there's a different feel to the air these days, the snow is melting and there's no denying the fact that spring weather is, indeed, approaching.

And I've got to admit that I'm actually getting eager thinking about gardening once again.  I sat at the kitchen table for a couple of hours this afternoon plotting out what will go where in the raised beds and field garden for the coming season.  I'm still tossing around what to plant in the pumpkin patch this year.  Yeah, I know, you would think I'd plant pumpkins there, but I like to rotate crops so the same thing isn't grown in the same area each year.  I did have pie pumpkins and jack 'o lantern pumpkins in that patch last year so it will be some other crop this year.

 Not a recent picture.  Obviously.

I'll plant the usual vegetables again this year.  Pretty much the same old boring things, but they do keep us in tasty, nutritious food close to year 'round.  Although I'm wanting to go through the pantry and freezers to see exactly what quantities are left at this point, we have yet to run out of any of the vegetables I put by last year.  We're still eating peas, sugar snap peas, beets, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, green and yellow beans and squash.  The applesauce and stuffed green peppers are holding out along with frozen blueberries and raspberries.  Sad to say but true, the frozen strawberries are long gone, but we do have ample jam.  Our root cellar still holds apples (although a very few), carrots and potatoes that are in good shape.  Plenty of onions and garlic on a shelf in the basement holding at 52 degrees.  There are even a few heads of cabbage, but the outer leaves are looking a little worse for wear now.  They probably won't keep much longer.

One of the two double rows of strawberries 

I have left.

I have 200 new strawberry plants coming this spring, and I have to decide in which area of the field garden they will be planted.  I have two double rows of old berry plants that are still producing, but they are no longer bearing nearly as much as we need for fresh eating, sharing with friends, making jam and squirreling away in the freezer for smoothies all year long. 

On a topic other than the garden, Papa Pea and I spent this morning sketching out our spring/summer/fall project list.  No doubt about it.  Not enough time for outdoor projects, and way too many projects we still want to get accomplished around this here old place.  Getting them all done now! this summer would be preferable to only being able to accomplish a few of them.  So in an effort to maintain our slight grip on reality, we have to face the fact that isn't going to happen.

We have an A and a B list.  We prioritized the A list and hubby wanted to do the same for the B list, but I, being the old fuddy-duddy-stick-in-the-mud I am, said that we should wait to do that until we had finished all the items on the A list.  Yeah, I know I'm no fun at all.

Tonight, I'm going to sit on the couch, knitting needles in hand and soak up another remaining night of being lazy in front of the open fire.  Spring is certainly coming, but it's not here quite yet.