It really was a lovely sunny spring week. The sun was out, more flowers appeared every day, and the diversity of insects is multiplying (which seems to be a good thing so far). It also meant I didn’t feel guilty while Alex was outside doing most of the work! (I had office work to do.) “We” are still sowing seeds in trays and cautiously transplanting some into the garden as we try to guess what the weather has in store. The stock of trays with seedlings is also accumulating as we wait for them to grow their second set of leaves and burst upwards. It really feels like they’re all stalling at the same phase! My best guess is that our imagined timing is out by a month. More evidence became available this week: two other vegetable subscriptions are starting in December, whereas we imagined starting in November. That was a huge relief given the rows of red text for missed harvests in my “target harvest” spreadsheet!

Through the week we picked up some chard and tomato seedlings grown by a friend with a heated propagation table. They were all huge relative to ours even though they were planted around the same time. I’m optimistic that these seedlings supplemented with some purchases can help us close the gap between our current reality and the target harvests in November. In October the annual Valley-famous tomato seedling sale will be held again just down the road and that should take the pressure off the still-tiny but still-alive tomato seedlings we grew. We also bought some potted herbs this week that have been difficult to find, let alone to grow from seed: french tarragon and lemon verbena (verveine). I spent the afternoon planting those along with some of the other herbs we’ve managed to keep alive through winter. Instant results!

Next week we’ll keep on planting seeds in line with the plan while fussing over our seedlings and willing them to grow faster. The tunnel still seems to be the most hospitable place for greens at the moment so I’ll try to convince Alex to fill it with spinach and lettuce while we wait the tomatoes, eggplants and capsicums to take off. And I’ll keep trying to remember to record what’s flowering and buzzing in the garden so we can try to improve our timing a little next year.