Imbolc Waxing Wild Moon
At this time of year gardeners begin to develop x-ray vision, seeing through the snow, ice and frozen soil and imaging the greening. Those of us who rely on memory more than paper try to envision what we’ve got in the ground, sort of the botanical base line. Perennial flowers and plants, which make up the bulk of our terraced gardens, have an established presence. We add in some annuals as the spirit moves, sometimes we divide existing plants like hosta, hemerocallis, iris, Siberian iris, liguria, bug bane, dicentra, aster. Once in a while we plant new bulbs. None last fall, for example, but that 
probably means some this fall.
(pic: where we left off last fall)
This part of the garden requires work, but not as much as the vegetables and the orchard. I count it is a known quantity.
The permaculture additions, of which we have made several over the last three years, are still new to us, requiring attention and learning. This year, I’ve decided, will be a consolidation year. Nothing new, making what we have work as well as we can. That means planting vegetables in two categories: kitchen garden for eating throughout the summer and early fall and vegetables for storage over the winter: potatoes, garlic, parsnip, carrots, greens, squash those kind of things.
There is a good bit of work to be done repairing Rigel and Vega’s late fall destruction. That won’t be repeated because we have a small fortune in fencing around the vegetables and the orchard, but I lost heart last fall and didn’t get the netaphim repaired and earth moved back into place. That awaits in the spring.
In mid-March I have the bee-keeping class and this year I have the same consolidation idea for the bees. Establishing the hives as permanent parts of our property.
We do have a couple of smaller non-garden projects that need to get done. I dug the fire-pit two years ago, but with all the fun of the puppy’s last summer never got back around to it. It needs finishing. I also want to turn the former machine shed into a honey house, a place to store bee stuff and to process the honey. Of course, we actually have to produce some first.
