Spring is coming, right?

The calendar may say that spring is coming soon...but gosh darn, it's been a tipsy turvey couple of weeks as far as weather goes. From danged cold, to above freezing, to windy and bouncing back and forth between them. Once in a while we get some snow to liven up the challenge. Ugh. On Friday it was warm and we had mist, rain, fog, snain, sleet and snow. Of course as soon as the skies clear here in the winter, the temps drop which means everything is pretty much iced over. Double ugh. Today we have clear skies and big winds at work. I arrived to find the yard here pretty much drifted in. I already called the plow guy, but I am not too confident he can even bust it up with a pickup. I am probably going to have to find someone with a Bobcat to clean it out. Triple ugh.

With the "big plant" another three weeks out, I am already up to my eyeballs in flats with little bitty green things. Seeded another dozen yesterday, in fact, which brings the total up to well over 60. I had to transplant some things into three inch pots, which meant turning on the big light (the 600 watt HPS fixture on a rail) for the first time. Even though I took home one rack from work, which makes for a total of four...I could easily use at least two more. Oh well, just not in the budget at this point.

A couple years back I attempted to start some Tumbling Tom tomatoes, with dismal luck. This year, I tried again-with nearly one hundred percent germination. Which is great, and I hope its a harbringer of good seedings to come. In the meantime, I am constantly diddling with air flow, temperatures, and battling a bit of mold due to accidentally leaving my mini greenhouse in the garage shut one day too long. It's always a learning curve doing this at home, but hopefully one day I'll have the big greenhouse up (complete with heat!) and be able to avoid some of these issues.

I think most gardeners here in Alaska are optomists at the core. Who else would start umpteen bazillion plants when it's still winter?