A lot of snow.

A snow angel I made on 23 April 2013.

Wow, I didn't realize how long it's been since I last wrote.

Our little bit of snow turned into a spring snow extravaganza. We've had 12 days of rain or snow in the last 16 days. We were supposed to get some snow tomorrow, but it looks like the forecast has cleared up and we might get to the 50F's for the rest of the week.

People are really getting sick of snow. My yard, which was completely grass on 22 April had enough snow to make a snow angel the next day, and today all of the snow is gone again. We really can't complain too much since the snow doesn't last, but we've had a dull grey and white landscape. It's been so dreary. The blue skies today have been lovely.

I've had a big die-off of seedlings. I tried to be hands-off after I broke a lot of stems transplanting seedlings, but I was too hands off. Last week, I decided everything that had survived needed more room and some individualized attention. I had the garlic and shallots started in paper dixie cups. I had to peel the cup off the first clove I was going to transplant and the roots had grown into the seams in the paper. The garlic and shallots are so much healthier with a lot more room.

Watering has been a problem for me. I haven't managed it well in the garden, or handling the seeds indoors. Last year I noticed one of my neighbors watering her seedlings with a plastic disposable spoon. Each seedling would get one or two spoonfuls. I used to think that was so tedious, but it makes sense to me now. I got a medicine dropper (free from Walgreens) and I've been using it to water the seedlings. It means I have to water a lot more often, and it takes much longer - I've got about 100 seedlings - but so far it's been working well. The seedlings look healthier than they have - the green is deeper, second and third sets of leaves are coming out.

I'm still just guessing as far as how much water to use, but since I'm checking every day, I don't overwater and I can recover from too little water before it kills the plant. I'm measuring the water based on the number of "squirts." Today, little seedlings got 3 squirts, garlic and shallot cloves got 4, and the plants that are working really hard, like the squashes, got 5 squirts.

I plan to carry this over to the garden be watering each plant individually instead of relying on the sprayer on the hose to get everything wet. Last year, my watering wasn't even. It meant some of my plants had really shallow roots. Some of the plants that wanted a lot of water sucked the soil dry. I hope to fix that this year.

Today I started reading Country Wisdom & Know-How. I bought it a few years ago and it is a FANTASTIC resource for everything.

To start with, I'm going to read up on all the kinds of seedlings I've completely wiped out. With all of the snow, it's going to be early June before anything can go in the ground. I've got a few extra weeks to start seedlings and I can do it with the official proper way to start that kind of seed.

I'm going to start my garden layout too. This book is great for explaining companion plantings and lists of plants that don't do well together at all. It's a huge book. Lots of information and when I get tired of reading about gardening, I can read about raising chickens or making jam.