Full Swing

Spring has sprung with a vengeance. April has been warm and dry so far, and you can practically see everything growing. It's a beautiful time of the year and although I'm sure we would all love to laze on the porch and watch the clouds go by, Saturdays are getting even busier and we get closer to the beginning of the farmers' market. The tulips are lovely to look at,

but this sight is even more exciting:

This is our sugar snap pea Fort Knox, designed to protect those tender little seedlings from hungry deer passing through. The first and second plantings are up and growing - the first planting is big enough now to start wrapping tiny tendrils around the cattle panels that will serve as trellises. I put in a third planting this weekend to finish out the first panel and fill most of the right side of the second panel. We'll likely end the sugar snap pea planting there and use the left side of the second panel for something later in the summer that would appreciate a nice, sturdy climbing wall. Maybe some Rattlesnake green beans.

At the same time, the greenhouse is starting to fill up with vegetable and herb transplants. The germination problems we were having a week or two ago seem to be gone along with the cool weather, which is great, but everywhere we turn now there are seedlings that need to be potted up! The parsley has been going crazy this week,

and while the plants may look a little small in the individual pots at the moment,

I can only imagine (with considerable glee) what they'll look like in a few weeks. We have some Catalogno parsley coming along as well, but a week or two behind the Big Italy. I'm curious to see how the Catalogno compares. It'll also be interesting to see how big these plants get - the Big Italy plants we put in the ground last year didn't really grow to massive proportions until the onset of cool fall weather. But we're 4-6 weeks ahead on the parsley this year.

We started potting up the first of the Greco basil as well, and even though the seedlings are barely a quarter of an inch tall right now, they give off a wonderful smell when brushed! Between the basil, parsley, and tomatoes, things are looking pretty good right now.