Leaping into the 2012 Garden Season

So, February 29, Leap Day, seems an appropriate time to start garden blogging for 2012.  In a typical year we would have been rushing to start our seeds a week or two ago.  My dining room window seat should be covered in soil filled seed cups by now.  This year a different project has sprouted itself and consumed our time and energy... a project that has been put off for way too long... an icky not fun project.

Think cobwebs, dead rodents, musty dusty air, and piles and piles of stuff.  Yes, that would be our basement. We've had our place almost 8 years and the basement has been our catch all place for misc. building materials, firewood, tons of paint cans, empty jars, used pots, cleaning supplies, old tires, old glass window panes, old doors, ladders, and the old heating oil tank, etc.  Oh, and my laundry area too.  Well, the time had come to clean it up, paint it and organize it.  It also should be noted that half our basement has a concrete floor, the other half is a dirt floor (hence musty smell).

Well without going into great detail because this blog is about gardening, we spent a week clearing out the basement, did two dump runs, put a bunch of free stuff out by the curb (most of it is gone now- yay!), put down a vapor barrier and a plywood floor over the dirt part, and painted the walls a fresh bright white.  My hope is to complete the plywood floor space and move all the stuff we're keeping into that room, so we can finish painting the concrete floored space.  Then... we can see how best to utilize  the basement.

This is where gardening ideas comes in... neatly organized supplies for seed starting, perhaps a grow light system, so I don't have to use my dining room window for starts, shelving to store our crops (root cellar), shelving to store our drinks (wine cellar), and a well-organized workshop space to build misc. garden furniture (potting bench).  Also, I want a nice clean pretty laundry center.  Is this asking too much?

We'll see what gets done over the next few months.

In other garden news, most of our fall crops wintered over well and we ate a healthy amount of brussel sprouts, turnips, bok choy, and kale.  Now, our broccoli are starting to sprout florets, fresh chives and garlic sprouts have been coming up, and our little sprouts of lettuce and mesclun mix that sat there most of the winter is growing again.  Also, down at our community garden plot which has a makeshift plastic hoop house over it, we planted some sugar lace snap peas, green onions, and lettuce a few weeks ago and they are all coming up fine.

Thank goodness for Leap Day, for helping me reset my blogging clock.  Happy Gardening!