I have been hibernating sort of. Our daffodils on the south side of the house are just coming up thru the ground. This week the snow has finally disappeared from the upper field and we see deer grazing just before dusk.

I have got to start my tomato and pepper seeds! All seed orders have come in and there is no excuse for not getting started. I have also done my bulk order with NOFA with pickup later this month.

My husband bought one more but smaller bag of black oil seeds. NH Fish and Game recommends feeders be taken down by April 1. We've never had a problem but this year bears have come out of hibernation when it was warmer than usual and someone in town just posted a video of a mama and three cubs nosing around their backyard. I didn't realize bears sometimes go in and out of hibernation during the winter. We have a three sided wooden crate set up for winter compost near the house. I've expected to see it attract some kind of animals but nothing except a few jays. It's on a pallet so my husband can pick it up to take to the official compost bins that are close to the garden but far from the house.

A couple of weeks ago maple syrup season started up. My husband and his brothers used to boil sap outdoors but it wasn't something we did with our son. Kind of sorry we didn't but our house at the time was surrounded by oaks.

We've had two pairs of bluebirds at the feeders. They have had trouble getting suet but keep trying. I haven't seen them going after suet before. Lots of juncos and goldfinches this year but no red polls or pine siskins.

I'm not sure when to start looking for the blood root that grows next to the road on my way into town. I'll have to see if I noted the date last year.

Hello Defrost - Nice to see a post from you. :-)

You have snow cover still? We barely had 2 inches of snow all winter. I didn't want a ton, but I missed having more.

It’s just about the right time for the pepper and tomato seedlings I imagine. I hadn’t decided what I am doing in the vegetable garden this year. Scaling back a little. I was thinking of not doing it at all, then someone suggested just using one or two of my raised beds and not the rest, so I am going to do that. I can just buy seedlings, but maybe I’ll start a few seeds, since I have them and a light set up.

What tomatoes and peppers are you planning on this year? Are you growing anything else new this year in the vegetable garden? You were using a hoop house, weren’t you?

That’s interesting about the bears, I didn’t know they go in and out of hibernation either. I don't envy you having to take them into consideration. It's bad enough to have coyotes here.

I just noticed this morning that my compost bins are still full to the top and it has to be because we’ve had so little precipitation. I need them empty for clean up, so I’ll probably just dump it all on the vegetable beds I’m not using and water them in well.

We love real maple syrup at our house. It is a good skill to have to be able to make it. Is Maple Syrup season before Mud and Fly season?

We don’t have bluebirds in our neck of the woods, so you are lucky to have them. This year, we’ve barely seen a junco and no goldfinches at all. A few cardinals and a group of robins swooped down to strip the Hollies one day. We still have an Aronia dripping with berries, but the birds usually eat that late. I saw a robin testing it out this week, but, I guess they’re not ready yet, he hasn’t been back.

I haven’t been feeding birds recently, but I’m considering just using some cracked corn for awhile for the mourning doves. I just filled the birdbaths, so that should help.

We have a patch of bloodroot near the backstairs and I’ll have to check my notes too. No sign of it yet. Bloodroot blooms and stops so fast, if you blink, you miss it.

Good morning Prairie Moon and others, now the snow is gone except for small ridges where it was plowed up or fell off the roof. My husband has taken advantage of warm good weather days to do some outside chores but I have not. I would have made a very poor farmer. I never planted my high tunnel last fall since I did a lot of traveling which included my first ever trip to Italy, mostly the Amalfi Coast where lemons were everywhere and it seemed every hillside was planted with grapes. We were there just before the olive harvest. A vineyard we visited had a 300 year old grapevine with a trunk thick like a tree.

I'm embarrassed to admit it has been so long since I looked at my seed lists that I don't remember what I'm planting. I do remember a tiny pepper which some people had in one of their meals. I tracked it down to being available pickled in a jar and called Sweetie Drops and low and behold on the pepper bar at Whole Foods in Bedford. A few years ago I planted quite a few pepper varieties because I was trying to grow my own Aleppo pepper and why not buy other interesting sounding peppers while I was at it. The good news from that exploit was sharing plants with a neighbor who is a library volunteer and it seems we are going to have a small town garden club this year. I also like to grow Buran which comes from Pinetree Garden Seeds. It's a very large, meaty bell type. For some reason tomatoes like being under the plastic roof of the high tunnel which then disrupts plans for seeding fall/winter crops. I had an excellent tasting purple and yellow cherry tomato that I think I bought at Edgewater Farm in Plainfield NH. I hope to grow it again IF I figure out what variety it was. The planting label might still be in the ground. I don't think it was a Bumblebee type.

Good luck with a couple of raised beds which are probably the best idea is growing fewer vegetables if you can only decide which ones merit the privilege. We have good corn stands and surly raccoons so I don't try growing our own sweet corn. Raccoons outwitted us 35 years ago and I haven't tried since. Surely you will grow a few tomatoes and at least one pepper good for salads and/or frying up for sausage sandwiches (I like Carmen for that but it's not meaty enough for roasting.) And basil. Cilantro self seeds in the high tunnel. Dill self seeds outside. They are easy enough to buy at the store. Last year the new asparagus beds did not get properly weeded so that will be a priority this spring. The beds are infested with Creeping Jenny. I think lettuce is difficult, bolting so easily. Do you have good farmers markets nearby? Sometimes I think I would be a lot smarter to do a CSA. I usually make at least one trip to the Norwich VT farmers market which I think is one of the best and worth the hour + drive especially since I can go to Edgewater at the same time and they grow a wonderful variety of annuals.

The inexpensive huge plastic pots I bought a couple of years ago at Ocean State had to be thrown out due to splitting etc. A red morning glory waited to start blooming just before frost so I won't try growing again. But a holly hock was new to our narrow south facing garden under our kitchen table windows which provided a great opportunity to watch hummingbirds. I also like to grow Scarlet Runner bean for that purpose. If we try to grow a couple of cherry tomatoes to have handy, we also get to watch a chipmunk climb tomato cages to feast. Chipmunks don't usually bother the tomatoes in the vegetable garden which is quite a few yards from the house. I think it's because they don't dare be out in the open that long with hawks and crows around.

But what about sugarsnap peas? After tomatoes and peppers I think they are our next favorite vegetables. They are also the only green vegetable one fussy granddaughter will eat although she only wants the peas inside not the tasty pods. Green beans are also a favorite and I'm surprised it took me so long to plant pole beans. Fortex is a favorite. I had good luck growing on a metal trellis made from concrete reinforcing wire panel and pepper plants along the base.

Well, I'm good at typing about gardening even if I don't get chores done. Alas this week looks like a great time to get outside and I have meetings and seminars. I hope others enjoy some outdoor time this week and tell us about it.

Hi Defrost - It sounds like you made your trip to Italy just at the right time. I can imagine going to such a warm climate that can grow lemons and grapes and olives everywhere, that coming back to a hoop house in New Hampshire might leave you a little less than enthusiastic. [g].

I had a season that I tried a lot of peppers as well. I am sure I still have a number of varieties leftover. We do eat a lot of peppers and grow as many plants as I can fit. I squeeze a few into my perennial bed too. Carmen is one of our favorites too.

I don’t envy you Creeping Jenny. We had asparagus beds, but I wanted the space for other things and my husband was the only one who ate it and he’s just as happy to buy it when he wants it.

Hollyhocks are great, did you happen to notice if rust was much of a problem? I had Scarlett Runnerbeans all over my veggie trellises one season and yes, they did give me a few visits from hummers, though I don’t see them very often. Thanks for the reminder, I still have a lot of seed, now to find out if they’re still good.

Over the winter, I thought I would not be vegetable gardening at all and didn’t have opportunity to start seeds, so things have changed and now the weather is warming up and I have no seedlings for a spring garden with our favorites, kale, broccoli, boy choy, lettuce and cabbage. So I’m debating what to do. If we have an early warm spell, it would work against me starting these crops from seed now. The nursery where I buy organic seedlings, doesn’t usually have them out this early. So, I am planning on looking at my seed box today for the first time, to see what I can direct sow to get going right away.

Yes, I’ll grow tomatoes and a few peppers. I may as well start the tomatoes myself they take so little time to get big enough to put out. Basil and cilantro for sure, lettuce for sure. We have had a lot of dill and I love the way it self sows. I grow it with perennials too. I do have walking onions that a generous soul on the Vegetable forum shared with me. They are already up and green and I was able to trim those and clean them up yesterday. I’ve been adding scallions and jalapeño pepper to smoothies in the morning. [g]

I do have trellises made of cattle panels on some of my beds and I’ll grow beans and cucumbers. I don’t have enough sun to do justice to squashes, so that’s an easy decision to leave out.

We don’t really have very good farmer’s markets. I grow organically and there are markets, but not a lot of growers who grow organically. And no CSA that I know of that is organic either.

I really like sugarsnap peas but I seem to be the only one who eats them and I always create a problem for myself trying to get them out of the bed to plant something else. So I don’t know what I’ll do this year. And I’ll have less trellis space this year and I need it for string beans. I love Pole beans. I don’t have enough space to grow bush beans.

We started clean up over the weekend. Since we had so little rain and no snow to speak of, my full to the top compost bins are still full to the top. They didn’t break down at all. So I’m going to have to empty those out and will probably just park it in vacant vegetable beds and water them in well, so I can use the bins for clean up.

I’m still working on pruning. I seem to always be pruning something, just to keep up with it. It is supposed to be a gorgeous week and today the pick of the week, so I’m going to be heading outside soon and going to try to get as much done as I can this week.

You may not get much garden time this week, but I think they said next week is supposed to be nice as well.

Gorgeous out there right now in the Worcester area at 3.00 pm and 64*. Have doors open, yay! As for gardening, I am still in slothful hibernation mode, unfortunately -- the spirit being willing but the ol' bod not following along yet. Did a minuscule amount of raking where the daffs are coming up thru the leaves and realized after 20 minutes that I must get into better shape. Crocus and snowdrops are open and smiling at the sun. Air smells springlike and feels lovely against the skin.

College grandson coming here tomorrow, so I will have help with that raking. Most of the yard/gardens were cleaned up a few weeks ago by my yard guy during mild days, thank goodness. I had thought, back in the fall, to just leave all the end-of-season debris in place and deal with it in the spring -- sort of an experiment to see how it would/would not work out, but my fellow came by and started the job, so I let him have at it, except for the beds near the house. Now I get to deal with them. Ah, well.

We had so little snow this winter for protecting plants, I suppose leaving the litter in place may have been beneficial. There never seems to be an easy decision regarding whether to clear leaves or not. Unfortunately, most of my trees are oaks which don't decompose in place very well. So much for easy soil improvement, lol.

I'm trying something new this year for veggies -- I have miserable luck in growing from seed, so plan to order plants from Burpee for tomatoes and peppers to grow on my deck. We have an excellent local nursery/garden stand to buy other produce (and I like to support local business).

And of course, I had told myself to limit plant purchases, both online and local, this year... HAH. You should see my wish-lists. To say nothing of how enticing and irresistible the nursery will be in just a few weeks!! Oh, help me...