Contemplating Spring

Tree Face and Chickadee House

Right now I’m thinking this must be one of the best days of the entire year. I’m sitting in my office by an open window typing this, and the birds are serenading me. I should be outside digging in the dirt, but I’ll probably end up as I do most days — spending too much time inside, and then before you know it, it’s dinner time. But I did manage to get a tiny bit of weeding done and planted two raised beds with beets and added some eggplant seeds to the pea beds.

The temperatures are unseasonably warm, but not too hot yet. We’re supposed to get rain and then cooler weather toward the weekend. But the weather guys are saying there is no future frost in sight. Therefore, the rest of the planting must happen this week!

Eggplant, Ping Tung

This is a picture of my eggplants from last year. They are ridiculously easy to grow, seem to love hot weather, and two plants are enough to have plenty of eggplant to go around. This variety is Ping Tung, and the seeds were a complementary gift for an order I had placed with Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. If you don’t order anything else from them, at least get their gorgeous catalog filled with veggie beauty.

Update on the birds’ nest building: I have assembled a pile of assorted yarns, string, and thin strips of fabric, placed it in a mesh potato bag and hung it on a tree. To make sure they notice it, I pulled a few strands through the mesh and let them hang down. I’ll check it once in a while to see if there’s been any activity. I left the blue and green yarn on the concrete paver where I placed it last week, because I know it had already been picked through and that they might be back looking for more.

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