Signs of Spring - right around earth day

Finally have some hostas peeking out!

Compost

Last week I went on craigslist.com to find some free manure. I found a horse farm in Morristown that was happy to get rid of some. I could not believe the size of the pile they had. Unfortunately I don't have a pickup or I would have filled it up but instead I took 3 contractor-type garbage bags full. So this past Saturday I went to work on my compost bin. It's 3 bins and I had one bin sitting since last fall and another that I have slowly been adding to just this spring. I took the new pile and turned it into the empty bin and added some layers of manure and layers of shredded leaves. It's about 3 feet tall and 4 x 4 feet. I have a 16 inch long thermometer that is supposed to be for grilling but I bought it for checking my compost. It's 50 degrees out today and the inside of the pile says 120 degrees! I also took the old pile and turned that. I added a little bit of manure in layers while I turned that pile too because it didn't really look finished enough for me yet. That pile however has not heated up at all although it did last fall. I guess it all of that out if it's system already but I figure a little extra manure never hurt anybody's compost.

Signs of Spring - First weekend in April

We have a few flower beds that are all starting to look pretty good. Tulips are starting to get big and you can kind of tell what color the hyacinths are going to be. I've never grown garlic before but all of the cloves I planted have sprouted up through their layer of mulch. About half of the Lilacs I tried transplanting last year have small buds on them, the other half don't look so hot...

Crocus

Daylily or Spiderwort, I'm not sure yet

The bulb garden. Lilly, daffodil, tulip, hyacinth. And you can see my grow light and seedlings inside.

Hyacinths and tulips

Daffodils. One is even starting to show where it's going to flower

Lilac buds

Garlic sprouting through the mulch

Signs of Spring - Last week of March

Frogs! At night, the frogs have started chirping away. When we first moved in 2 years ago, it was a big change going from hearing the highway in the background all the time to the sounds of nature all around us. The frogs were ridiculous. We read in the paper that it was a particularly good year for frogs in terms of weather conditions so that's why they were so vocal that year. It's not quite so loud but they have started up again.

Starting Veggies from Seed

I have a vegetable garden and I've tried to start my plants from seed but it never seems to work out and I end up buying plants. This year I bought a shoplight and some plant/aquarium tubes and got it all set up. Hopefully we'll see a big improvement over previous tries.

Signs of Spring - March 25

First crocus popped up! Keep it up spring. 60s on Sunday.

Turkeys

Here is the video of they turkeys in our backyard I mentioned in an earlier entry.