January Madness

Okay, I admit it. I was a total fool today. The sun was shining. It was WARM. Really warm. Enough to take off the sweater and bask kind of warm. And so fooled by this gorgeous March-like weather, I got out my garden fork and turned over a bed. The soil was fluffy and perfect. It called to me like a siren. In a moment of weakness, I succumbed.

I got out the seed bucket and planted kale, mustard, collards, lettuce, winter greens, swiss chard, spinach, bunching onions, winter cauliflower, Chinese cabbage, carrots and beets. (Okay, it was more than a moment.) I planted the whole shabang. Ignoring the biodynamic practice of planting things at their proper times I put entire packages of seeds in the ground (and in the hoophouse). I talked myself into this after looking at the sorry shape my original winter garden was in after that long, hard freeze we had last month.

What WAS I thinking? It is FREEZING out there now. If it were really spring this Hellebore would have already bloomed, not merely starting to bud.

Seriously, right now (a mere 3 hours past planting), it is a beautiful starry night and the ground is frozen tight.

All I can say is I was struck down by a case of January madness, the kind of crazy that infects the minds of true blue Pacific Northwesterners when they get a sunny day in January and the weather report is predicting a few more. We forget that this is still winter. We forget that sun is a temporary kindness and do stupid things like jump in the lake to swim (brrr, my kids tried that one) or plant entire packages of seeds with high hopes only to remember a few hours later that January is NOT planting season no matter how nice it seems.

Oh well, since this is an El Nino year, I guess I will just call this bit of temporary insanity an experiment and see how things do. It will be nice to have a comparison of things planted in the hoophouse with the things planted outside. I'll let you know if anything grows. Tomorrow, in the next bit of sun I am going to remind myself that the kiwi plant needs pruning. That will surely keep me busy all day long and then I won't waste any more seeds.

ps news report--Brigid was NOT pregnant again, but she was ripe for another AI treatment. We will see next time. Hopefully, the third time's the charm.