Spring Wonderland

This is what I woke up to this morning-a beautiful spring wonderland. I had a hard time removing the sheets off the hoop; they were frozen solid. I could have easily cracked them into pieces. Yes I'm still using those old sheets. Yesterday I bought a protective garden cover to protect from heavy rain, frost and more... and you would have thought I'd used it last night. Well, I'm trying to figure out how to lay it on the hoop. It's 5 ft x 25ft so I'm thinking I may have to cut it and sew it together to make it square. I need to decide soon before it warms up; I don't want to give the cabbage worms and loopers the opportunity to setup residency in this box full of greens.

My first shallot seedling. I had it covered with a salad container last night. I don't think I really needed to cover it, but as a careful and inexperienced gardener, I'm babying all my seedlings. I do have a couple of other onion plants which I rescued from my compost last fall.

This was one of the decaying onions from my composter. It is now a beautiful onion plant. Hopefully I will get to harvest an onion from it. I'll show you what I end up with when that time comes.

Here is my completed worm bin. I made them a "milk shake" of decaying bananas, lettuce and apples. I'm sure they had a feast. As you can see, they still have room for growth because

there's six to eight inches of height for them to occupy and fill full of worm castings. I'm going to wait till it's full before I harvest.

This is how I covered my bin last night. It's not covered with snow because I cleaned it off prior to taking the picture. I wasn't' thinking.

I think the worms survived because it was much warmer in the bin.

I'm really enjoying this book by Bob Thomson. It's full of tried and true gardening tips and information.... and the pictures are great. I believe a valuable gardening book not only has to be resourceful but it has to have great real life pictures...and this book has that. The soil pictured in this book is the type you dream of...black, rich and full of fertile matter. The chapters are divided by months with tasks to perform in during that time period. He also includes plans on how to make a coldframe, bean trellis, composter and more. I highly recommend this book. You can check this copy out from the Washoe County Library...of course, you'll have to wait in line or buy your own copy.