I can see dirt!!

Old man winter certainly is stubborn and I have a feeling (based on the -14 C temp right now) that he's not going to give into spring without a fight! Brrrrr.. yesterday morning was also cold, but it warmed up considerably by early afternoon and I actually went out to play in the garden!!

As you can see from this photo, there is still a lot of snow, but the raised beds are finally shedding their blanket of the white stuff. I even opened the carrot cold frame in the background to pick a few handfuls for supper. We lightly steamed them along with store-bought carrots (such an unnatural bright orange looking colour) to have a taste test.. homegrown won by a mile!! (phew! You never know when dealing with kids)

This was a fun little pair of carrots, tucked away all winter in their embrace! The photos aren't great - it was so sunny, but I wanted to snap a few pictures while I was up there.. Anyone who has gardened with the square foot method knows just how many carrots you can grow in a small space and I'm happy to say that even though we've been harvesting them like crazy, there are still about 80 to 100 baby carrots left to pick in the frames.

Since the soil free of snow was actually soft, I grabbed my trusty shovel and had fun turning the soil over a bit.. I also dug the last two celeriac roots - huge knobby balls! I've posted about celeriac in the past and it's becoming a family favourite. I love its willingness to sit in the garden all winter (under straw/leaves and a row cover) until I'm ready to pull one for a soup, stew or other dish. It's extremely slow growing though so if you plan on starting your own seed, it's time to sow them indoors.

Hopefully the temperature will rise above zero again today and more snow will melt.. with rain in the forecast for the next several days, I'm hoping we'll be snow-free by Sunday.. here are a few more photos from yesterday!

Happy Gardening..