Current moonphase: waxing crescent

Current temperature: 51* F

Mild, light breeze, partly cloudy.

Happy Spring Equinox! Today was an absolutely lovely spring day here. Sun, breeze and even a sprinkle of rain. My chives are twice as long as they were a week ago, and my pink and purple hyacinths are in bloom. At least 8 of the 12 grape hyacinth bulbs Firehand and I planted last fall have sprouted, too.

I treated myself to a trip to the local greenhouse today. I was hoping to get an aloe vera plant to put on the window sill in my kitchen, but they didn’t have any small plants. So instead I just browsed around the greenhouse, basking in the presence of all the green and blooming plants that were there.

I did end up getting some seeds to start for the vegetable garden this year. Here is what I chose (not too much different from last year):

• salad mix lettuce (red and green)
• Little Finger carrots
• Roma tomatoes
• Early Snowball cauliflower
• Peaches & Cream bi-color sweet corn
• Blue Lake stringless green beans (pole)
• edible pod sugar snap peas
• ornamental birdhouse gourds
• dipper gourds

The gourds are something new for this year, I am hoping to grow some that will work for making rattles. Cauliflower is new and I’m looking forward to that. I am trying carrots again this year, even though I’ve not been successful with them for some reason. Plus, I’ll be sharing seeds with my Tribemates, and they have onions, broccoli, spinach and much more. I hope I’m not being overly ambitious, considering the size of my garden plot. We may have to enlarge it– again!– and we just did that last year.

When I got home from the greenhouse, the Goddess Garden was calling me. I decided to go see if any of my green friends were coming up yet. The neighbor’s pussy willow tree, which shades the Goddess Garden, was already a riot of fuzzy blooms over my head. I cleared out all the old dead leaves and branches from around my herbs and was happy to see that my green friends are doing quite well, already! My lavender plants survived the winter, my hyssop is almost double in size, lemon thyme looks good and of course the sage, yarrow and lemon balm are thriving, as usual. It felt good to be grubbing around in the earth and the herbs smelled so good!

I plan to continue my spring equinox celebrations tomorrow by plotting out my garden, figuring out when to start my seeds and redecorating my altar. Welcome spring!

This post and MORE over at THE COVE.