The raised beds were barely visible and I had to shovel paths for my dog and out to the chicken coop.

Here’s an earlier view for comparison.

I’m also fanatical about heirloom roses. The rose garden was in its heyday in the late 80s and early 90s. Unfortunately, by last year it was in sad decline, so I literally started over with antique own-root varieties and upright yew and winterberry hedges, including a new fence. The green tents are for winter protection and will come off after night temperatures remain above freezing.

This view of it is looking toward the house

The front of the house faces the road with a southwest exposure, so the garden beds in the dooryard are the first to see bulbs come up and shrubs start to bud.

This mixed shrub bed contains white lilacs, winterberries, hawthorn, witch hazel, autumn olive, rugosa and swamp roses, as well as perennials - asters, bee balm, feverfew, rudbeckia, blue flag. On the other side of the path are medicinals - betony, clary sage, boneset, hops, anise hyssop, elder, blue vervain and black cohosh - along with irises and day lilies.

The mulch is Sweet Peet, an organic mulch made from composted manure. In a couple of weeks this area will look very different.

These guys are very happy to be able to scratch in their yard for bugs and grubs again. (They hate snow.)

By chance I saw a sign on the side of the road for a local company, Rerooted Landscapes, advertising raised bed edible gardens. I decided to add four 4’X8’ raised beds to the existing 4’X8’ and 4’X4’ beds and filled them from an old compost pile.

I did an inventory of my seed collection, including many heirloom tomatoes, some 5+ years old. Most were from two of my favorite seed companies, Fedco Seeds and Tomato Fest. Fedco is a coop in Maine with several divisions including Fedco Trees, Moose Tubers, and Fedco Growers’ Supply. Tomato Fest in California offers 650 varieties of organic, open-pollinated non-GMO heirloom tomatoes from all over the world. This year they announced they were discontinuing a list of varieties that were no longer cost effective to carry and offered those seeds at a discount. Of course I had to save those tomatoes from extinction!

I decided to see if any of the old seeds would germinate. (I’m in New Hampshire Zone 5, so I started the first week of March.) Hah, all but two did. The first, 2020 Cherokee Purple, followed by 2021 Early Wonder, 2019 Rose de Berne, 2016 (!) Brandywine, and many more. With the new seeds from Tomato Fest I now have 24 varieties of seedlings with 6 more seeded. Lots of the old standards, Yellow Pear, Black Cherry, Cherokee Chocolate, but also some lesser-known varieties with interesting names like Silvery Fir Tree and Esmeralda Golosina. I should mention I really like Coast of Maine seed starting mix.

I’m now repotting the largest ones from the 3” cells to 4” pots. I’ll be sharing plants with all the neighbors, lol. I also joined the Candia Farmers’ Market Community Table. Next on the calendar are onions, shallots, leeks, cauliflower and squash. Also soaking sweet pea and butterfly pea seeds. Very excited to find those at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

Root crops will be direct seeded in the raised beds. Stay tuned for more updates. Thank for reading.