Gardening season has begun!

It's all of 25 degrees here, so nothing is going in the ground yet, and the lawn is still the color of a paper grocery bag. I have sent the kids out this afternoon to pick up all the recyclables that got blown across the yard in the last wind storm, so at least it will no longer look derelict. The weather promises to be a little nicer this week, so I might be able to clean up a few of the winter leaves and start mapping out what will go where this year. Of course only about 10% of my March plans get carried out each year. I hope that by the time I'm retired, I'll have one of those happy little gardens that cause people to slow down a little as they walk by the house. That would make me truly happy.

And today, I started on a new garden adventure, Winter Sowing. Winter sowing is a process where you plant seeds in plastic containers while it is still winter, then set them outside and wait for them to sprout in their own time. The containers serve as little individual greenhouses, reducing the need for watering, and protecting the seeds from the winter's hungry critters. To my spring-starved self, this concept seems to be genius. A perfect storm of frugality, recycling, and excitement for spring. So today, Nora and I cut apart some milk jugs and an old cranberry juice bottle, filled them with potting soil, and planted basil, dill, cilantro, lavender and rudbeckia. As soon as I gather some more containers, the rest of the herb seeds I have and some more flowers.

There's still a chance that the whole idea is silly, and I'll spend months staring at the stupid bottles, only to find out that wintersown.org is an elaborate web hoax, designed to make me look stupid. Only time will tell.