SPRING

My garden begins to take on life outside of my imagination when the first seeds sprout under grow lights in February. In March, as the ground is thawing and I’m wearing my mud boots, I head to our local garden center to pick up more seeds and supplies for the coming active months of digging and planting. Sugar and snap peas, which prefer to go outside when it’s still cold, are put into the ground first, in early April. I grow multiple varieties of peas each year and love finding new ways to use them in the kitchen. I plant edible flowers around this time too, which soon bring their happy pops of color to the beds. By May, the first young shoots of perennial asparagus and rhubarb—spring garden harvests I never tire of—begin to appear. First the alpine strawberry plants begin to blossom followed by the rest of the strawberries and raspberry bushes a few weeks later.