#Blackbird

It must be Spring, even though we still have three feet of snow in the backyard.  Yesterday I saw the first Blackbird in our bird feeder. Apparently, some people spotted geese already. I haven't. Don't these birds know any better than coming back so soon? Unless they know more than our weather forecasters. Perhaps Spring is already just around the corner. The calender says it is Spring, but looking outside it doesn't look that way.

Now it is time to think gardening. Yesterday I seeded 96 containers with pepper seeds. That 's right: 96 containers. We love peppers. Last year I started with my peppers in February, but by the time the garden was ready (I'm talking weather here and warm temperatures), the plants were tall and spindly. It is not really a big problem, because you can plant the stem deep, just like tomato plants. The part of the stem that is below ground will develop roots.

I saved seeds from my own peppers, but I also bought a few packages. I will still buy plants from the garden centers. The problem with saving seeds is that the different types of peppers will cross-pollinate and the resulting fruit won't be the original pepper. Last year I had quite a few Hungarian Hot Peppers which weren't hot. I suspect they cross-pollinated with the Sweet Banana Peppers growing next to them. That's why I still buy pepper plants.

I won't seed my own tomatoes this year and just buy what I need. Every year I promise myself not to plant so many tomatoes, and every year I plant too many. I just can't throw out the plants I grew myself, so this year only bought tomato plants. That way I can control it better. We had so many tomatoes last year, nobody wanted any when I offered them to friends and even family. Everybody had lots of tomatoes last year. I took a couple of huge pails full of beautiful tomatoes to the Soup Kitchen in Selkirk. They were happy.