This is my last Movable Type post. I'm going to export this weblog. Then I'm going to import it into WordPress. If all goes well, you will find it here: http://www.coldclimategardening.com/index.php. That "php" will be very important until I get the rest of the website incorporated into a cohesive whole. My RSS feed will change, too, to http://www.coldclimategardening.com/feed/ .

See you later.

I can hear, but still not see redwing blackbirds trilling in the trees, and this morning the Canada geese announced themselves with plaintive hooting and great lazy shadows crossing the lawn. We are perched on the edge of spring! I’ve been preoccupied for the last three years with other matters, and gardening has taken a back seat. But as my life calms down somewhat, I’m discovering that one never gets away from gardening; it’s been there the whole time, running in the background of my mind. And I seem to have come back to it with a greater dollop of patience and wisdom than when I left: problems that before were insurmountable, seem much less daunting to me now. Also, the effects I was frustrated in not being able to achieve before, seem to have either happened behind my back or my standards have declined considerably. Probably the latter… But best of all, the old familiar rush of excitement has returned as I contemplate the seasons and their chores before me. Our local Christian Center advertised Easter as New Year’s for the soul. Surely spring is New Year’s for the gardener. I have made all sorts of resolutions.

My first task is to dig up from my memory all the little surprises I managed to plant before the cold drove me into the house last autumn. After our new kitchen extension was put on the back of the house in 2002, the views from those bright windows cried out for garden beds so I started a terraced bank behind the house. It took two years for me to dig the five layers, and still they need constant adjustment. The above picture that I took this morning shows the pine logs that I use to contain each step and how the ravages of winter have left them in total disarray. They are dislodged by water run-off from storms, by deer stumbling across them, by lawn mowers that catch their edges. However, they will do until a better idea presents itself to me. Each row has a footpath behind it, wide enough for me to crawl along, weeding and muttering and generally communing with things. I usually have a cat in attendance, hiding among the daylily foliage and reaching out a paw now and then to let the weeding hand know who’s boss.

I am very pleased to introduce to you our latest contributor. Innes and I "met" through the North American Cottage Garden Society (which no longer exists). I had asked her to be a contributor when I first started my blog, but she wasn't able to then. Now she has a bit more time and has agreed to share it with us. Innes gardens in the Catskill Mountains of New York.

I mean, did you miss my website? Access was denied (even to me, can you imagine?) for most of Saturday, all of Sunday, and most of Monday. It's all straightened out now, at least until the end of April.

But I thought I'd take this opportunity to let you know that big changes are coming. Shortly after I got done with my "minor" web redesign (a big deal to me), my webhost let me know that I really, really, really needed to either upgrade Movable Type or change publishing platforms. (MT is what I use to publish this blog.) According to this pricing structure, I need to cough up 70 bucks for the privilege of using MT3. So I'm switching to WordPress.

There are a lot of exciting features in WordPress, but there are also several learning curves involved. Consequently you are not going to see much writing from me for a while, even though I have so many ideas banging around in my head I'd like to share. And even when I'm done, it's going to look way different, because I don't (or won't, because gardening season is imminent) have time to make it look like it does now. Sigh. All that tweaking and hair-pulling down the drain.

Yes, the first of the snowdrops bloomed today, and not especially enthusiastically--their buds are scarcely open. It's even more anticlimatic considering a lone crocus beat them to the punch, blooming merrily this morning while the snowdrops didn't open up till afternoon. I think this crocus is the same one that bloomed first in 2003. And while it seems like it took forever for them to bloom, I see by my previous records that they are by no means the most tardy.

So now it's officially mud season--over a hundred feet of muddy driveway, to be exact. Lots of birds are back, lots of snowdrops almost ready to bloom, and snow predicted for tomorrow and Thursday. But after that rain. Nice, snow-melting, ground thawing rain.

And to answer Don's question in the comment section of the last post: no, I don't know what kind they are. My records say I bought them from VanDyck's in 1994. Back then my biggest concern was cost per bulb, not what they were named.

Thanks to Rundy for taking these photos. If they seem a bit blurry, it's because he went through contortions to get in close without kneeling in the mud, and he wasn't holding the camera quite steady as a result.

Doug Welch posted a photo on his blog that he says he took yesterday on a walk. Yesterday? Sometimes I feel like I live on a different planet, and not just the other side of the same continent. This photo features cosmos blooming in abundance. I happen to like cosmos. But in my garden, it won't bloom until late July, and that's if I start the seed indoors before the last frost.

We've been having sunshine these last few days, which has been nice, but it still dips down to the single digits every night. So even though you can actually see patches of our driveway now, we still have that river of ice.

The birthday garden, which has a southern exposure, is mostly snow free and will probably yield the first snowdrop. I can see the bud in amongst the leaves. Don't worry, I'll let you know when it finally blossoms!

All of my seeds are here, so now Spring can come. In fact, I'm beginning to get impatient now. . .

Fedco had to substitute my Amish pepper for a similar variety. . .I guess a lot of people liked their discription! The things they had to substitute were cheaper, so they also sent two dimes in with the order. I can't say I ever had great plans for those two dimes, but I won't complain about getting them back!

My first batch of leeks (Sherwood, which won't overwinter) is about 3 inches tall. This weekend I start my next batch of leeks. I think they're called "Imperial"; I've never tried them before. I just got them in my Fedco order, otherwise I would have started them at the same time as the Sherwood. The "Imperial" can overwinter.

March, as is typical around here, came in like lion, is still acting like a lion, and probably won't be tired of acting like a lion by the time it leaves. But the sun is up when I get up in the morning, and we aren't eternally covered in thick layer of clouds, so I feel like there is hope for Spring.