Notes From Zone 4

I’m a bit tired of this prolonged winter. The snow was almost gone when we got this recent coldsnap and accompanying snow. The puppy loves it, of course, and I should be used to it, but we have so much to do that needs good weather that I’m getting frustrated. My to-do list just

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We finally got a big storm yesterday, and it was beautiful outside today. Frank got out there with his big camera and took a lot of shots. I think some of these will be good enough to show up in the gardenporn catalog later. I definitely want to get some winterish shots that people might be able to use for holiday cards next year that aren’t religious. So anyway, finally a foot of snow. It’s been a very light year for snow so far, so it was much needed.

I think this is the official start to the 2004 Gardening Season. The only way to indulge my gardening obsession while living in Zone 4 is to start my plants from seed, under lights. I started four flats of pansies today. Well, to be perfectly accurate, three of pansies, one of violas. After much

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I am such a sucker for gardenporn email. Dutch Gardens sent me a blurb on an oriental poppy mixture that I totally could not resist. Not only did I order it, but I ordered two collections, and they all got here today. But they’ll be so pretty! They are plants, and look to be in really good shape. I need to get them in ASAP, though. It’s been freezing every night lately. There was a really hard freeze last night. The ground stayed ice covered deep into the morning this morning.

We worked on building some more compost bins today. We’ve filled up the ones we have already, between the weeds, grass clippings and the coffee grounds we get from the coffee shop. An no, I do not want to stop getting those grounds. Our soil is so poor we need all the compost we can get. We are mixing it with shredded paper. We had to get a bigger one last weekend, because we, er, burned out the other one from too much use. This new one — much nicer. Eats cardboard boxes like cereal boxes without blinking. The lupines, water lilies and irises are all in full bloom right now. Driving up to the house, the garden just looks spectacular. Why isn’t the garden tour today?!