Thanks, Phil!

Phil the Groundhog did not see his shadow this morning, which supposedly means that spring is going to be early this year. I'm going to ignore the fact that Phil has been wrong 61% of the time. I'm beyond ready for spring to get here. I'm longing to get my hands dirty and to eat my first tomato of the season.

Today also happens to be Imbolc, which is the midway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. So to celebrate, I started sweet potato slips.

This is the first year I'm trying sweet potatoes. I discovered a fantastic tutorial on starting them (as well as an overall awesome blog) called Outlaw Garden. We're practically neighbors, though she is in zone 7a and I'm in zone 7b. I feel the same way about my HOA that she does about hers. One of the covenants out here says you can't plant more than 10% of your property with edible food. I'll plant what I darn well please, thankyouverymuch. I'm a firm believer that our lives (as a whole) would be much better if we went back to the days of the Victory Garden. 

I purchased a bag of organic sweet potatoes before Christmas for Christmas dinner. I didn't use all of them, and they've just been hanging out in my pantry. When I read on her blog that I didn't need anything fancy to start sweet potato slips, I decided to give it a try.

Per the instructions, I cut the healthiest looking one in half and put it in a glass dish, cut side down.

After a few weeks, these will supposedly start growing slips. In the meantime, I roasted a couple out of the bag for lunch. Topped with butter, salt and pepper = nom.

In other gardening news, the broccoli is doing really well. It's about 2 weeks old, and will be going into the garden in another couple weeks.

I have a gardening complex that removes any and all patience. So I poke my seeds a lot to see if they've germinated, and today (2 days post sowing) I noticed my giant marconi pepper seeds are starting to sprout. Because I'm aware that normal people don't poke their seeds a billion times, I've put a green arrow pointing at the beginning of the sprout. Then I tucked the seed back in.

I saved the sad news for last. My peas didn't make it. *cries* I put them in during a pretty warm spell, and then we got the coldest temperatures we've had over the past several years. Down into the very low teens, which they just didn't like. So note to self - don't plant peas in January. (I'm sure I'll forget all about that next year, and plant them anyway.) I'll drop some more seed in the next week or two.

Don't forget to stop by the shop - I'm having a 20% off sale for Easter! Use code EASTER13 for 20% off all orders.