Twig Checkup

In late winter, it is a good idea to take periodic looks at your woody shrubs and small trees. On a brief foray outside on this icy day, I examined my red-twig dogwood and discovered a broken branch (below). It is probably the result of a squirrel or bird resting on the not-sturdy-enough twig.
I'll need to get this trimmed off soon so that disease does not enter here. At the end of fall, I gave the service berry and Magnolia a once over and found several branches needing removal on the Magnolia. I try to prune as minimally as possible, with clean tools, but in the case of rubbing twigs or damaged bark, it is a necessity.

Random Green Winter Musings

In warm weather, I am constantly outside this door in my backyard. For now, I must be content to enjoy how much warmer it is in the kitchen with this new insulated door. The Chilewich roller shade is pretty sweet, too. (Yeah my fridge door is a mess.)
Also nice is that the greenhouse-protected garden is providing me with fresh spinach.

Winter will be a lot more bearable, and the garden more fruitful come spring, with this grow light from Johnny's. (It was a snap to put together, and storing it will be a cinch.) It is awaiting trays of seedlings--first up, onion!

Also fighting the winter blues with retail therapy, like these cute green sandals I scored on sale.

Year-round Gardening

Not much to report from the frozen backyard, and it is so miserable most days I don't even peek out there, but I was thrilled to make a homegrown salad of arugula and radishes--on January 2nd! Not everything in the greenhouses is thriving, but the spinach is also hanging in there, and if it has survived so far, it'll be gangbusters in very early spring.In the meantime, I am perusing seed catalogs and shopping for lights to start seeds. I even took a look at the Farmers' Almanac weather predictions (cool and dry in spring), so maybe this will be the year I get a good spring crop. Spring can't get here soon enough.