my almost spring garden

it's mid-february, which means it's time to wake up the garden! here's the winter garden in the backyard, full of chard, cabbage, leeks, and brussels sprouts.

making art in the garden.

as the plants came out of the ground the chickens enjoyed a brussels sprouts salad bar.

turning the soil is a family affair. my husband really did most of the work.

the first seeds to go into the ground: cascadia snap peas, dakota shelling peas, and tyee spinach.

once vincent turned the soil and worked compost into it i started sowing seeds. look at these little peas!

i made these plant markers out of random sticks and wrote on them with a sharpie. they're cute and useful as long as they stay in the ground. i've already had to reposition them a few times, due to a little one who wants to collect them all in her hands. once things start coming up it won't matter anymore.

the biggest change this year is building tunnel cloches by adding hoops and covering them with plastic. this way everything will heat up a bit faster. now that the tunnels are there i can sow lettuce and chard too! they aren't the prettiest things to see when you look out the window, but they won't be on there forever. the plastic will come off once the peas are tall enough for a trellis, in a couple of months i'm guessing.

not only the chickens got to benefit from the garden turnover. we harvested the last of the leeks, chard and cabbage. i'll post soon about what i did with these delicious plants in my kitchen...