Dirty Deeds

I got dirty today. Real dirty. Pulled weeds, hoed the soil, and planted seeds. Alice was fine for the first couple seconds, but freaked out when the wind started to blow and I accidentally got some dirt on her shoes. She pointed at my hands in the soil and whimpered, "Dirty!" A far cry from our first real venture outside last spring.

I planted the first round of snap peas, baby lettuce mix, and early carrots in the cold frame Denise built me last year. Then I hacked back that blasted rose bush, trimmed my asparagus ferns, and reworked some of the front flower bed so it wouldn't grow over my sidewalk again. Bobby consented to giving me the garage for my seed-starting setup this year. In the past, I set everything up in our spare bedroom or living room...not aesthetically pleasing to most (I find the setup QUITE appealing, myself). We'll try the garage this time and see if 6 weeks of street parking is worth a more aesthetically pleasing living room :)

On a related note, my garage-style root cellar worked okay. I never did find any root vegetables to put in there, so it was all winter squash (acorn and butternut varieties). Some squash rotted and some did not. I did learn, however, that having fresh squash on-hand all winter did NOT improve my chances of actually cooking it. I like winter squash. Really, I do. But it turns out I like the IDEA of eating winter squash much more than I like eating it for real. Hm. Of course, the abundance of summer produce is still far away. I may warm up to those last remaining squash after all.