Waiting for Spring to spring...

I don't know about you, but I've had just about enough of the cold, windy, cloudy, snowy, windy, cold weather this winter. It's been one heck of a late winter... we've had over 300" of snow so far in the Sierras! So, while Spring takes it's sweet time getting here, I'll be day dreaming about flowers, gardening, warm weather and open windows.

My lovely sister-in-law from the east coast got us a gift certificate to White Flower Farm for Christmas and I've been pouring over the catalog and website trying to decide what to get. Here are some of my favorites:

The floral front-runner at this point is the lavender. (Also shown above: hydrangeas, prairie blue, asclepias, Peruvian lilies, and petunias.) Living where we do, we have several gardening challenges. One - we're in the middle of a desert, two - our soil is really alkaline, so in order to use our garden budget wisely we need to pick plants that are more likely to survive. We didn't plant many new things last year after we moved in, so I'm sensing some trial and error in our near future.

We like to grow vegetables too. At the old house, the hubby built me some great raised planters for our veggies. I was sad to leave them. We'll probably do that again here at the new house since it makes planting, maintaining and harvesting so much easier, but also because of a third problem - a furry, burrowy, annoying gopher population. The images above are some of the veggie types that we've planted in the past - tomatoes, garlic, peppers and assorted herbs.

Below are some new veggies that we've never tried... lettuces, rhubarb and potatoes. Not sure if this is the year to try something new, but they're on my list.

Doesn't all of that get you excited to get outside and start gardening?