Plants love the sun—obviously. My poor seedlings seemed to be stuck in a holding pattern for what felt like weeks, and I couldn’t figure out why. Then my friend Dru pointed out how overcast it had been. After just a week of sunshine, new leaves are popping up everywhere, and it’s like a lightbulb went off.
This is the moment I’ve been waiting for!
You know you’ve crossed into full-on garden obsession when you get excited about the second set of leaves, and you can confidently tell a bok choy from a kohlrabi. My poor family has no idea what they’re in for tonight when they come home—hello, field trip to the greenhouse!
Luckily, my daughter shares my gardening enthusiasm, and my husband? Well, he tolerates it. Just today, I discovered he’d secretly picked up a moisture meter for me. Talk about stealth approval—the moisture meter just mysteriously appeared in the greenhouse.
Here in central PA, we’ve had a mild winter so far, which has its ups and downs. On the plus side, greens I planted outside in the fall are likely still producing, and root crops are still there for the picking. However, the downside to this mild weather is that some of our perennial and woody plants may not get the cold period they need, which could mess with their growth cycles. We’re also at risk of our perennials and woody plants putting out new leaves and flowers too early, only to be hit by a sudden cold front.
