Whoever said the toughest time of the winter happens after Christmas and before spring was right! The grey days of January are upon us, and with them, the night temps dipping to -30C and below. In spite of it all, though, the bees are leaving the hive for cleaning flights whenever the temperature rises enough for them to safely buzz about, and the birds are legion. It’s amazing what survives the deep cold and the long dark of these midwinter days far north of the border.
We’re right in the midst of seed-ordering for the coming spring’s market garden, and I find myself dreaming back to the delicious food and the amazing flowers that filled our one-acre garden last summer. We’ve been clearing additional brush this winter for new projects and an expansion of our organic grain fields, and I can’t help slipping in an order here and there for flower seeds. It’s wonderful to look out over the garden and see brilliant colours alive with bees!
Right now, I’m dreaming of California poppies:
We sowed these beauties in the early spring last year, just as the frost was going out of the ground in early June. They filled the front of a thirty-foot bed outside the moose fence, brightening up the line of potato plants behind them and forming a gorgeous footing for a wall of sunflowers along the fence.
Which plants are you dreaming of for the summer ahead, friends?