Seasonal doings, early March

I've earned my badge for first bike ride of the year -- a 3-mile evening jaunt on a relatively mild March 1 to attend a local Pinewood Derby. Weather-wise, I could have been a real eco star and hung the year's first load of laundry out back... but I haven't yet. 

A few reasons why I haven't hung laundry out yet: 1) The snow has only just finally melted, so the backyard is boggy; 2) a winter's worth of dog doo (anytime he did business out back instead of on his walk) is thawing into the backyard bog; and 3) I'm feeling cold and lazy. 

I'll get motivated to make the backyard ready for laundry soon enough. In the meantime, here's another seasonally relevant report. The first of every month, I get a planting reminder email from Gardenate, a simple site that can guide your gardening calendar based on your climate zone. Here in Zone 5a, February's email lists 15 different vegetables and herbs that I could now "Start undercover in seed trays and plant out in 4-6 weeks." In my experience, however, February has proven too early to start most things indoors, even with the grow light and warming mat to encourage them. Six weeks later is sometime in April, when a rogue cold day can still wipe out tender seedlings. And besides, almost all of the same plants are repeated in March's reminder, with another 30 or so others.

So now, in early March, I've opened my shoebox of leftover seed packets and spread them all over a table in the basement so I can start thinking about what I will plant for this year's garden. Procrastinating in stages feels like progress.

I was happy with last year's herb garden, so I'm hoping the herbs with perennial potential do indeed grow back, and I'll definitely plant some of the same annual herbs this year, with perhaps a few additions. And although I waffle on whether to bother with tomato plants, it's pretty likely I'll go ahead with those again, too.

OK, next seasonal chore -- stirring and using the compost. That bin is full after winter. I'm also curious to see how quickly (or slowly) last fall's chopped-up leaves will decompose as the weather warms up. For now, the leaf mold is still scattered all over the lawn, having been frozen in place by snow cover most of the winter.

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