The garden in february
I’m starting to get excited about the approaching growing season, dreaming of all the herbs and flowers I want to welcome into our garden this year.
Blessed belated Imbolc, everyone!
Spring is surely paving its way in our neck of the woods. The nights have been bitterly cold and have us spending the evenings as close as possible to our wood stove. However, as the sun begins its ascent on the cloudless sky, the warmth is a sweet balm on our cold winter skins.
The wattle is starting to bloom, the bees buzzing around its yellow flowers, as well as the flowering rosemary, small wild daffodils, and various tiny wildflowers in shades of purple and yellow.
I’m starting to get excited about the approaching growing season, dreaming of all the herbs and flowers I want to welcome into our garden this year. More herbs! More flowers!, is always my late winter motto, but the hot days’ reality hits later in the year, and my dreams tend to fall through the cracks. But I’m remaining hopeful this year. I’ve decided that I will put more effort into draught tolerant perennials — not letting go of my lovely and delicate annual herbs and flowers, but thinking twice when I’m about to fill an empty space in the garden.
Today I rolled up my sleeves (well, figuratively speaking of course. It was so delightfully warm that I wore short sleeves for the first time in months!) and spent part of the day working in the garden, waking our beds up from winter’s slumber and preparing them for the upcoming season. The excitement of these late winter days is one of my favorite seasonal feelings. Even the chickens enjoyed a day away from their chicken coop, door wide open as an invitation to scratch the ground amongst the oaks and olive trees and eat some weeds and small critters.
And because it’s been a while since I’ve written one of my gardening posts, where I share what I’m doing in the garden on any given month, here’s some garden content for you!
These days, I’ve been giving some garden beds a soil makeover, topping them up with soil from our previous garden space… Do you remember the previous garden, with raised beds made of woven wattle? This large fenced area is now the chicken coop (as our winged family keeps on growing), but all the hugelkultur beds were left behind. So I’m taking them apart and transporting the dark soil to the new stone raised beds, which have been in need of some serious improvement. I’m also incorporating small doses of compost and plenty of mulch. In a couple of months, I’ll be planting our summer crops here.
I’m also unrooting strawberry plants and dividing them, to replant in sunnier garden beds around the house. Crossing my fingers we finally have a decent strawberry supply this year! Herbs such as lemon balm are also finding new homes in shadier garden beds. I’m not sure why I’m unrooting so many plants this season, but it feels right.
Throughout winter, we’ve planted new fruit trees and berry bushes around the house, too. I can’t wait to see shiny green leaves slowly unfurl. Sweet peas are flowering, and fava beans are about to start too. The excitement is palpable!
Here’s what I’m sowing outside this month:
Mizuna
Red Giant Mustard
Red poppies (scatter around, but also in companionship with the fava beans)
Echinacea
Fennel
Radishes
Parsley
I’ll leave the remaining plants for when the risk of frost has definitely passed. Since we don’t have a greenhouse, I’ve learned to hold on on many plants (think tomatoes, peppers, zucchini…) until the weather is warm enough to start them in trays outside.
For now, the space around the house is still looking quiet, sleepy and cold. But all around, and deep inside, is teeming with life, about to unfurl and bloom and start the dance of colors and scents once again. And so the wheel of the year keeps on turning.
And I’m hanging my small St. Brigid’s cross in the garden, to support this year’s gardening dreams. Although this craft’s roots are from somewhere Northern, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to harness different blessings for the garden (and I’ll take any chance to indulge in folk crafts!).
Of course, could not sign off without sharing a project that has been keeping me busy. This beautiful (and equally challenging!) Lakka cardigan that has been growing on my knitting needles and I’m hoping to have finished before the equinox.
What have you been making lately? Indoors, outdoors, dreaming up? Do share!
With late winter sprinkles and rustling leaves,
Cat 🍂
PS. Thank you so much to the lovely reader who recommended the book Circe, by Madeline Miller! I placed a small book order last month with some of y’alls beautiful recommendations and decided to dive into this one first. What a treat! 💛