Final carrot harvest. While these are super cute, carrots are another vegetable that I’m buying from the store.

Finally, a weekend filled with lots of things that I like best (and some housecleaning). It was a big gray and cool on Saturday, but everything worked out fine since that was the day when Boy Scout Kyle who is trying to raise money to fund his Scouting activities delivered, yes, delivered 10 huge bags of compost and 18 huge bags of mulch. Sweet Kyle even stacked them neatly. And delivered they were cheaper than the place where I have gotten compost and mulch in the past. Best of all, Bruce and I didn’t have to load and unload it. Score!

While the mulch for the front planting beds will wait for another weekend, after cleaning up what was left of the winter garden (lots of death and a few fancy mini carrots), I made quick work of getting the compost into the beds. 8 of the 10 bags of compost were added to the raised beds and stock tanks.

In case you’re curious, my faithful birthday composter is still doing it’s thing, breaking down scraps and keeping them out of the landfill, but it’s not ready yet for the garden. I’m thinking I was a big overzealous with the size of the peels and scraps. But the composter beasties seem happy enough with the variety. So they’ll need to get busy and the compost will wait in the composter until fall once it’s ready. That’s where all of my sad and very dead kale, collard greens, and cilantro went. (They looked beautiful and then the sleet got them.)

The other two bags of compost will be great for helping along the flower planters that I intend to get for our patio and the kitchen herb planter which has been 80% wiped out by the weather. All that’s left are the chives and truthfully they look like they may have finally succumbed to the awfulness of this winter. And yes, I did say flowers. They may be edible or just pretty. I’m not sure what I want to get yet, but I would like them to be attractive to both butterflies and bees.

And because I couldn’t help myself when my hands were in the compost and my face was smudged with dirt, I went ahead and planted spinach, mixed salad greens, kale, chard, and cilantro seeds. Beets will be this weekend, provided I remember to soak them on Friday night and I think it’s nearly time for beans. Hopefully we will not get any additional freak ice storms or sleet. I’m really thinking about getting a bunch of herb transplants this weekend at the local yuppie-hippie store. I was tempted Friday night when Bruce and I went on a pizza run, fueled by exhaustion and dinner ennui and then on Saturday morning I kicked myself for not getting them (they were a really good price and organic too).

To top it all off, Sunday marked the day when we spring forward. While plenty of my friends and coworkers complained about the loss of one hour of precious sleep (I went to bed deliciously tired at 9:30 pm), I rejoiced. It makes me so happy to have light when I leave the office and it’s much nicer for our dog walks in the evening.

So not only is it so sunny that at 5:30 pm I thought it was 3:30 pm, it’s also TIME TO DIG IN THE DIRT! I have missed it so. Seriously. I was wondering what was wrong with me in January and February and besides the broken ankle bone, I think that might have been one of the reasons I was so blah.

Blah no more. I am excited about the promise of beautiful plants. Time to spend outside even if it’s weeding. And so many good things to eat.

One more thing made me excited this weekend: my neighbor’s little French bulldog puppy Sophie. Don’t worry, I’ve already offered to puppy sit so I can snuggle that sweet little snorter. We lent her people one of our doggie gates so I had two chances to see her: once on Saturday to meet her and then the excuse of helping to install the gate on Sunday to see her again.

If she goes missing, her people will certainly come looking for her here. So without further adieu, here is today’s gratuitous dog photo:

Sophie