These are the chives that overwintered in my mudroom — they started coming back about two weeks ago, which makes overwintering them totally worthwhile. Although it’s warm here — nearly 60 degrees yesterday! And the sun is beginning to shine again, the ground is still frozen, and the garden chives and parsley have only just begun to think about greening up.

Yesterday I got the seeds out, and started organizing them again. I usually start tomatoes and peppers around the fifteenth of march, under lights in the basement. But it’s always an adventure deciding what to plant this year. I have a couple of new projects — among them, completing the fence around the raised beds to keep the chickens and dogs out of the food crops, and I think I want to try a hoop house this spring. I have a couple of square beds, six feet along each side, and I just need to get the Sweetheart, who builds things for a living, to calculate the materials for me, and I think I’m going to experiment with starting early in one bed. It would be nice to have some spinach, or early greens — maybe some Asian greens like tatsoi and gai lan, which are impossible to buy anywhere near here. Into each spring, a little garden project must fall …