Last Sunday was unbelievably warm. I was finally on the other end of a nasty stomach bug,  and I had hoped to plant my onions, although as of Sunday the ground still had a wee bit of ice under the surface, so they had to wait. Instead I cleaned and reorganized the garage. To be honest, I’ve been spring cleaning around the house since Christmas time.

But the other thing about last Sunday was that my garden was blooming. BLOOMING! On March 11! Snow drops and crocuses abound. By now, a week later, it’s practically weedy with them. Oh and I got my onions (multipliers, shallots and yellow Spanish) planted on Thursday evening. That time change is good for something.

This weekend I hope to get spinach, radishes and lettuce in the ground too. I ordered most of my seeds last weekend and I have some of them already, so I’ll be starting my tomatoes and peppers too (cleaning the garage was in part to find all my starting supplies). I should have started them weeks ago with all this warm weather as I could probably put them out much earlier than the traditional frost free date (May 24). I have some plastic cloches and for the first time this year I also have some frost jackets (these McKenzie brand ones are the cheapest I’ve ever come across at about $6.99 for a 3-pack), which would offer protection if we do indeed get some recurring cool weather. I also have some tunnelling material that I could pull out if I really needed to. The tease that comes with an early and very warm spring is that it could turn on you at any time.

Anyway, with temperatures expected to remain in the high teens and low twenties over the next week, I suspect our ‘Spring’ is going to be ridiculously short. Or rather, perhaps it’s actually been very, very long… it’s Winter that has been MIA.