Got most of the mowing done. Pretty quickly too! Amazing how fast it goes when it’s been six months instead of two years since the last one.

Garden is constructed and some plants are in. The fence has a section of chicken-wire running on the ground, about 12″ out from the upright part. That’s to keep rabbits from digging under, since they will supposedly dig right at the upright part and not be able to get through the chicken-wire. Apparently they’re not smart enough to back up 12″ and wiggle under, but we’ll see. The hay bales are because I was about 8′ short on the amount of chicken-wire I needed, so a bunny could just go right under there.

Here’s some broccoli that was started inside weeks ago and seems to be taking well to its transplant. You can see some romaine lettuce in the background.

This broccoli here is at the south end of the garden, where it gets a lot more sun. There were some white splotches forming on some of the leaves, and they were starting to wither and fall off. The north patch of broccoli didn’t have the problem, so I guessed it was too much sun and not enough hardening-off.

So I built these shades from scraps of landscaping fabric and some stakes that I had laying around. In the late morning, they get full sun, but by around 3:00, the sun has come around far enough that they’re shaded. Don’t worry, though! Plenty of light shines through those screens. What I plan to do is tip them up more and more upright as time goes on and the plants get a few new, hopefully-hardier, leaves.

Some tiny lettuces that I started from seed in the garden, just starting to germinate.

Here’s a little snow pea that is just starting to grasp its pole. These peas are supposed to be bush-style, but when I saw their little grasping tendrils, I couldn’t help giving them something to grab onto.

Here’s a batch of six peas, in the north bed. There are six more in the south bed. It’s like a face-off! Who will produce the most nommy peas for us to eat?!

Meanwhile, here are some onions and leeks. They’re still small enough that I haven’t mulched them, for fear of losing their little tendrils in the straw. I started out knowing which ones were onions and which were leeks, but I lost track, so… not sure what I’ll do about that in the end. Hopefully when they get bigger I’ll be able to tell. Leeks, you are supposed to hill dirt up around the shaft to keep it from getting green and tough. Onions, not so much.

Meanwhile, over in the planters, garlics started last December are doing fine. Some of them didn’t do so well in the cold, but most of them have sprung back like gangbusters.

The sage hardly noticed the cold, and I trimmed it back and gave it some nitrogen fertilizer, to try to encourage new fresh growth. The oregano looked totally dead, but it seems to be making a try for it. I still haven’t decided whether I’ll dig it out and get new ones or not.

I’m not sure the rosemary is going to recover, though. Like the sage, I cut it back and gave it some nitrogen fertilizer. Any suggestions are welcome.

Over in the barn, piggies are napping, nestled like peas in a pod.

And I’ve cleaned up the shop, in preparation for all the projects that will be done in the spring.

When it got cold last year, I was working frantically to finish a project, and once I finished it, I just sort of left the shop alone. It was a mess. What you see here is, by comparison, quite tidy.