The Man is on call + too windy to kayak + warm and overcast = perfect day to garden. I put on some lipstick (“Maple” by Laura Mercier), my oldest yoga pants, diamond earrings, an old MEC fleece jacket and my big rubber boots and headed outside.

Today’s big task was spreading manure. I focused mostly on the planter boxes and the raspberries. I added two or three 40-lb bags of manure to three of the planters and added just one bag to the second planter (with the winter arugula). I dug under the manure in the planter boxes and covered them up again until it gets warmer. Each row of raspberries got one bag of manure. The raspberry posts were installed and wired last month, and last week my gardening son and I tied up the canes. I am looking forward to a big raspberry year.

The Man has been focused on cutting back all the hemlocks and rhodos near the house to discourage rodents. He is also doing some kind of “lawn filler” project, to raise the lawn in in a high traffic area that has become kind of bald and dry. So far, it is an improvement….

Most of the winter crops are finished – or never really grew in the first place. The kale is coming back to life so I left that in until it is time to plant the potatoes, and the garlic is starting to come up. The kale, garlic, parsley and chives received heaping servings of the compost that my gardening son sifted a few weeks ago.

The first of the bulbs have come up and we have at least four different kinds of snowdrops growing in different areas. Although they are beautiful and are coming up in big patches all through the yard, I didn’t try to photograph any of them because it is overcast and my plant photos generally suck. In the last few weeks we’ve spent a lot of time raking away leaves and weeding different areas of the garden in preparation for spring.

Although I planted broad beans (Windsor) three weeks ago, they haven’t started to come up yet which makes me think that I planted them too soon.

Next: early spring planting: Arugula, Spinach, Radishes, Pac Choi and Kale!