Ahhh, the subtle return of the light, the seed catalogs in the mailbox, it is still cold outside, but the garden dreams have started. I know you are with me here, as I have gotten numbers emails lately about this year being your year for you to grow some serious food. I often forget how valuable growing my own food truly is and then I wander into the produce aisle mid winter and see Kale for almost $4 a bundle. All my winter garden laziness falls away and I get to down to business with my garden planning, compost collected and double digging. Honestly I don’t really buy many vegetables, in 2012 I grew over 500lbs of veggies here on 1/5 of an acre and though I haven’t done my math yet, but I am pretty sure 2013 there was even more. Every year is different, but I am hoping for an abundant year ahead, with the Wood Horse on my side and all. ( We just went to a Chinese New Year party, for those of you who missed that reference)
Today to celebrate Imbolc, the half way mark between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, I am making potting soil for my green house flats which I plan to sow tomorrow with lots of cool season greens. For those of you who bought a planting calendar, are you gardening along with me this year? ( If you didn’t get one, I still have a few.)
This spring, starting March 28th, I am excited to be offering a class at the Community College on Gardening in the Desert. These cold winter eves are spent in pouring through my book collection, organizing my thoughts and recruiting signups for this class. If you are familiar with SFCC Continuing Ed courses here is the course info is: course #Hg337 01/crN 31535 if not just call 505-428-1270 and they will get you all set up if you care to join me. We will be going from seed to harvest, focusing on home scale vegetable production in the high desert and since I run the garden at the College, we will have lots of opportunity to get our hands dirty.
Meanwhile, today in the backyard we harvested almost 1 lb of Spinach and are about ready to get the hose out and just spray down the entire lot if we don’t get some moisture soon! Enjoying the sun, praying for rain, the eternal dance of the desert grower!
Seeds & Stones 
Got the calendar and started onion and spinach a few weeks ago! My first attempt was not a swimming success. But then I tried again and things are starting to grow! Thanks for letting me follow along with you. The class sounds awesome.