The EHCG Garden Committee took a tour of the garden yesterday in order to get everything ship-shape for Opening Day next weekend. We have had a few gardeners message us who are anxious to get out to their plots and start working; below is some photographic evidence that the growing season is still at least a week away.
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| A photo taken from my walk to EHCG. It's hard to believe that Spring is just a few days away. |
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| Welcome back to the Gardens! If only the real sun were shining down on us, melting the ice and snow covering our grounds. |
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| The shed at the entrance to the Gardens. |
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| The share shelf is empty and waiting for donated transplants, seeds, and other extra supplies. |
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Meet the Committee! Will, our senior garden worker, is on the left with his bike. Our other garden worker Adam is too busy with his adorable baby to look at the camera.Our fearless registrar Gretel is on the far right. The guy to the left of Adam is Josh, the other co-chair of the committee. Notice the snow shoes. There is still a lot of snow and ice on the ground at EHCG!
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| The beautiful arbor looking very bare without its warmer weather cover of grape vines. |
Winter seems to be dragging on interminably in Madison, so try to be patient! We are all itching to start our early spring crops of carrots, peas, lettuce, and so on, but there is a lot of snow and ice on the ground. I believe the saying is that March comes "in like a lion and out like a lamb," so hopefully beautiful Spring days are not far off. Some houses in my neighborhood have early daffodils pushing out of the soil; perhaps my own bulb flowers will follow their lead in the coming weeks.
For now, I am consoling myself by planning as thoroughly as possible for the coming season. If you are new to gardening,
this website may be helpful as a planting guide. Once you plug in the estimated last spring frost date for your area, it will give general guidelines for when to start seeds, both indoors and out. When the snow and ice melt in the Gardens it is appropriate to plant crops like early peas and even carrots. If you prefer to wait for the Seed Fair (April 6) to collect your free seed packets, your pea crop will still certainly come in by late spring.
I will post once more before Opening Day (March 23) with a list of crops to start in early Spring. Aside from peas, many root vegetables, lettuces, kale, broccoli, garlic, potatoes, and many other crops can be started soon. If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment below.
