Once once more, the climate isn't always cooperating with the calendar.
Today, March 20, is the vernal equinox, the legitimate start of spring. Google is celebrating the occasion with a Google Doodle of flowers blooming and a little honeybee humming among them. However, once I click on away from Google to my local weather report, I get a Winter Weather Advisory caution of snow inside the route of the day, with total accumulations of three to 5 inches. As of now, spherical 10am, the primary flakes have high-quality just began to fall, but if the weather document is to be believed, there may be plenty extra in which that came from.
Reading this put me in a chunk of a dilemma, because the spring equinox is also the subsequent Gardeners' Holiday in my calendar. Last yr, I celebrated it as First Sowing with the useful resource of planting my snow peas, the first crop of the 12 months to be seeded immediately into the lawn. This 12 months, I turn out to be making plans to do the identical with new Cascadia snap peas, which we decided on lower back in December to take the region of our vintage Oregon Giant snow peas. The seed packet says to plant those
After mulling it over, I decided there was only one way to find out.
My first order of business was to open up the garden and check the soil. If it was still frozen solid, then obviously no planting would be happening today. But no, it was nice and loose and loamy, yielding easily to my experimental prodding with the trowel. So I figured I had nothing to lose by going ahead and putting my peas in. After all, they are snow peas (well, okay, snap peas, but they're in the same family as snow peas), so having a little snow cover shouldn't hurt them. It might even help them stay nice and sheltered while they germinate. All I had to do was get them into the ground before the snow started to pile up.
So, following the instructions on the packet, I made a channel in the dirt with my trowel about 3/4 inch deep, and I dropped the peas in every 2 inches all along the channel. Then I just scooped the dirt back in over them. I didn't even bother watering them: if the forecast is correct, snow mixed with rain throughout the day will take care of that part of the job.
If this works, in a couple of weeks we should start to see the first sprouts of the first plants of the 2015 gardening season. (Assuming, that is, that there aren't still 3 to 5 inches of snow in the way.) And if it doesn't, oh well, I can just replant them; there are plenty more seeds in the packet.
Even though the snow at this point is barely noticeable, I still feel very hardy and intrepid for having braved it to carry out my spring planting as planned. If it's time to plant peas in my garden, then by gum, those peas are getting planted, snow or no snow! Take that, winter!
