March winds... April showers... Even though it is still early, I think we are all looking forward to the May flowers. After experiencing one of our coldest winters, and with spring just teasing us, I started a few seeds and already I am seeing results. The tomatoes however, I started for the second time but hopefully this time germination will be successful.

In my earlier years, I spent many a winters night planning what I would grow and nurture in the coming months. And of course, I often thumbed through the Farmer’s Almanac to make my final decisions based on the weather predictions for the upcoming year. When you live in rural Saskatchewan and have a fairly sizeable garden space, you plant the vegetables needed to feed your growing family and a few tried and true flowers just for some colour.

Now a days, my gardening consists of a few pots scattered around the yard and a few smaller flower beds, but each year still brings some challenges, like a couple of years ago when I lost all my roses, and after an ice storm when the 20 plus year-old double flowering plum which I fashioned into a tree broke to the ground under all the weight of the ice. Then, last year, our neighborhood lost a great majority of the city planted Linden trees including the one that used to shade our front yard. 

But with every catastrophe comes a new opportunity. I spent a few nights this winter thumbing through my Gardener magazines and, finding the Farmer almanac, dreamed of the warm spring weather where once again I could spend some enjoyable hours outside, as my mom used to say, “playing in the dirt” where I may plant a new little treasure in that one bare spot in the flower bed.