Gardening season is underway

As of this week the gardening season is underway here in Maine, and, for me, art making is again put on hold for the seven months of running my business. I'm less happy about that than ever! I was on a roll with some new work that will remain unresolved until I can get back to it. Now that the weather is warm enough during the day I have been out with my crew doing spring clean ups which, over all, have been quite easy as we tend to do very thorough fall clean ups. We had great snow cover this past winter and that helped insulate the gardens. The only problem with that is that the snowdrifts gave the mice a very cozy place to live and some of the shrubs here and there were chewed on. In my own garden, my kitchen garden, I have peas, radishes, spinach and mesclun growing under row cover. I've never planted this early but my raised beds were dry enough and with row cover the seedlings will be protected from the wind (and there's lots of it). I want to grow a lot more of our own food this year, and to that end I have A LOT of broccoli (our favorite brassica) seedlings going. There will also be a lot of onions, leeks, garlic, carrots, winter squash, brussel sprouts, potatoes, tomatoes, etc. etc. Oh, and FLOWERS! I'm going to grow many more annual flowers and offer fresh bouqets for sale to my clients, for free delivery on the days we're there anyway. For a list of available flowers, updated at flowering time check this blog.