awaiting the warmth

i am ready for it to be warm, and stay warm for hours.
not yet here in our part of oregon.
we still have days of clouds and chilly rain,
and we have days of warmth and sunshine.
it's a slow dance between the two. slowly, slowly the sun and warmth stay longer
that's what i'm ready for

and so are our gardens.
gardening is big talk here, we like our healthy organic, locally grown, personally grown food.

chris has always loved gardening, give him a project outside in the dirt
and he is a happy man.

we were lucky that this house had a fenced garden with 4 raised beds.
the fence keeps out the deer and other critters, and provides growing space
for the berries and hops. yup, as in for beer
and no, we have done nothing with them. we may try to change that.

the big, black barrel in the above picture is our composter provided by the city.
they also pick up a full can of garden/ food waste to turn into composting.

worms!

one of jasper's homeschooling projects is a worm bin
of course my family was very excited to have another way to compost.
the kids are dumping the worms into the bin, and now voila
they will do their good work as decomposers
and my family will feed and water them.
the worms are fed items we would normally put into our composter,
veggie and fruit scraps, plant clippings, etc.
they will even eat paper bags, mmmmm.... yummy

our window sills and shower stalls and heat vents have been covered
for months with seedlings that are slowly finding their way outside
into our window boxes and our hoop garden.

chris wanted more garden space and a longer grow period.

the spring winds almost ruined this for him,
but the plants are thriving in there. he keeps the temperature optimal

as soon as the last bit of snow melts from the top of mary's peak
we're hoping that our outside garden will be as bountiful as our hoop garden!

happy growing!