Springing ahead

It was a wonderful weekend for gardening. Too bad I couldn't get my ass in gear yesterday; I could have accomplished a lot more, and there is a lot of spring clean up to do.

At this time of year, my hobbies are conflicting with each other. Should I knit or should I garden? It's hard to decide sometimes. This weekend, I made time for a little of both.

Yesterday I spent a good amount of time knitting away on my little silk scarf. I'm really trying to finish it up this weekend. However, I also found time to run out to the bookstore and pick up the new Yarn Harlot book, Knitting Rules, and Mason-Dixon Knitting. Today I ran out to Loopy Yarns to pick up...a surprise. I'll have to hold off commenting on exactly what was purchased at Loopy for a few days.

I found time to pick up groceries, too, then made back in time to do some spring clean up in the garden. Now you see it...

Now you don't...

The cover crop of winter rye has been completely worked in. I really love winter rye as a green manure. It's hardy and keeps the soil nice and friable. I'm a bit late in turning it over, though. Winter rye is alleopathic and it's recommended to wait at least 2 weeks before sowing seed in a bed where it has been grown. Since I had planned to plant my peas and beets here, I really should have turned this area over a few weeks ago. Today would have been a perfect day to plant peas and beets. Well, I can only blame myself for the late start.

BTW, that last photo shows my entire veggie garden area. I have lots of other perennial beds with herbs mixed in but this is the extent of my veggie gardening area for now. I'm hoping that next year I'll be able to put in raised beds in the "east lot," but this year I need to continue monitoring that area for the evil bindweed; It's no use putting a lot of effort into gardening in that area until the bindweed has been made to behave.

Bear with me for one last garden shot, OK? My garlic is growing so nicely this year now that I've fenced it in so the dogs can't walk all over it.

Garlic is such an easy thing to grow. We use so much of it that I'd really like to devote a whole bed to garlic. *sigh* I just can't wait until that east lot is ready. I've got such big plans: blueberries, asparagus, and now an entire bed of garlic. Yum!