April Showers

If April Showers bring May flowers, what do Mayflowers bring? 

...

Pilgrims.

That's an old joke that I remember from my childhood. I posted it here because I'm wondering what April snows bring. According to forecasts, we were supposed to get no more than 1/4" of snow, but we got the whole inch and maybe a little more. The weather has been totally uncooperative lately. We have had temperatures 5 degrees below normal. I have flats of seeds sprouted which I would like to leave out in their cold frames all night, but they wouldn't survive a below freezing night. Fortunately, it looks like we have turned a corner in that aspect.

I'm going well in my yard and garden goals so far. I've had much better results this year with my seed starting, but I've had a few setbacks as well. I'm not sure why, but my basil hasn't come up yet. I've never had trouble getting basil to sprout. Usually, I forget to water it at a critical time and it dies, but I've been much better with that this year. I've got a flat of tomatoes which are up nicely. I've also got eggplant, broccoli, kale, spinach, onions, a bunch of flowers and some herbs. I have a bunch more stuff to start and a bunch more stuff to direct seed, so baring an unexpected nuclear winter, I should have a productive garden this year.

Other than that, my hard work last fall planting almost 300 bulbs is paying off. I have stuff coming up everywhere. I still don't have one of those "garden tour" yards yet. Actually, I probably will never have one of those yards. I plant things where I have a space, near other things, in an environment which I think is right. As such, My garden areas get bigger, but look very piecemeal. If I had the money and time, I would construct the perfect yard which would be a combination of colors and smells and textures and whatnot. Given that I have a job and kids and a house and everything else, I'll stick with my approach.