Kiss of the sun for pardon. Song of the birds for mirth. You’re closer to God’s heart in a garden than anyplace else on earth.

Dorothy Frances Gurney

Gardening, for many of us, is extremely therapeutic. Not just the physical work involved, but the positive effect on mental health can’t be ignored. Even the medical experts agree:

‌Gardening can improve many aspects of mental health, focus, and concentration. Improves mood. Gardening can make you feel more peaceful and content. Focusing your attention on the immediate tasks and details of gardening can reduce negative thoughts and feelings and can make you feel better in the moment.

Not that I need the “experts” to tell me the obvious. I have personal experience in this. 😄

The forecast is looking great for the next couple of weeks which means we should be on schedule for planting everything according to the moon phase. I can’t describe the level of anticipation I feel! It’s been difficult waiting for this time to finally arrive.

I’ve been combing through last year’s garden photos and dreaming of bigger, better and tastier this coming season…

Today I’ll start hardening off the seedlings in anticipation of giving them a permanent place in the beds. That includes the wisteria which I’m sure is as anxious as I am to get outside!

Aside from the herbs, I didn’t start too many things indoors from seed because we have a long enough growing season that we do fine direct planting most of our veggies as long as we do it in the next few weeks.

The only thing I’m really trying to give more time than last year to is the pumpkins.

We had quite a few last year that didn’t have time to finish ripening on the vine so hopefully this jumpstart will help. I’ve been quite pleased with the results so far. The sugar pumpkins and black pumpkins are giving us a 90% + germination rate and I woke up to find that the white pumpkins are finally sprouting, too, much to my relief.

We will still direct sow some seeds of these along side the ones we transplant, just in case.

My onions are also coming along that I planted from seed this year. Last year we got a bumper crop and this year we hope to double that amount…

We bought those from our local nursery but this is the first year I’m growing from seed.

I’m also waiting for my live plant order to arrive this week from Dixondale Farms. I ordered 50-75 yellow spanish onions from them for $14.95 (with free shipping!) and can’t wait to get them into the beds. They came highly recommended from one of my favorite gardening channels on YouTube.

It’s been a bit hard watching everyone else plant, grow and harvest long before we can even get anything in the ground but it’s also been educational and, dare I say, therapeutic? 🙂