Is it Spring Yet?

I have my garden planned and my seeds purchased already. They're waiting in the basement for warmer weather, or at least for the calendar date when I can put the seeds in some soil, under the lights in their fake Spring in order to get a jump on our growing season.

Yes, I know it's only January, but the snapdragons get started at the end of February and I was one of the last people to order my snapdragon seeds before the company ran out of the variety I wanted, so I'm not that crazy to have them this early.

Besides, ordering my seeds makes the weather outside seem less bleak, less endless.

We're putting in a garden this year. For the last couple of years I've had an ever-growing series of pots lining my driveway. We had no room for a garden in the front without turning the front yard into a garden and the back yard was shady and wooded. I'd have had to take down the neighbors' trees in order to get enough sunlight in the back, and I think they would have objected.

We bought a new house and moved in November; I brought along all of my pots so that I could plant flowers around the back deck. In our new house we have 3 acres of land with only one line of trees at the back of the property, so we have plenty of room for a garden. We've walked the property and decided exactly where the garden should go and I wait.

The neighbor, a Mennonite carpenter named Elmer Yoder who's lived in his house forever, told me that our property is largely "muck." While this sounded to me like it meant rich, fertile soil, I have since discovered that "muck" is actually a technical term used to describe property that is too wet for crops. There is a broken field tile in the front that will need to be fixed in order to alleviate some of the drainage issues and the county is overdue for dredging the creek that abuts our parcel.

The spot which we've chosen sits a little bit higher than some of the surrounding yard and I'm hopeful that there will be no standing water in that spot at the end of Spring. We'll figure something out, I'm sure, but if I end up using my old system for growing my tomatoes this year, heck, at least I've already got the pots for it.

Change to Blog

I've got another post coming, probably more than one, but I made a change today that I wanted to alert my readers to.

I've been getting spam posts in my "comments" sections on my posts and it's been a pain to log in and clear them out- invariably they show up on older posts and I have to figure out when I wrote the entry first.

I am no longer able to accept anonymous comments on the blog- I am hoping that the change will completely eliminate spam postings (I really don't think anyone who reads this is interested in German Viagra) but I know that some of my regulars will no longer be able to post comments. I've hesitated to make the change for that reason, but I'm sure you all will understand.

Check back soon- I'm in a writing mood- I just need the time to sit down. I'll get something up this month though, for sure.

Edited to add: I got another spam comment today, written in a character language, so clearly the problem hasn't been solved yet. Spam is something, like vandalism, that I just don't "get." Hmph.