Mud pie season begins today

I love it - the patio is littered with plastic cups, bowls, knives, and garden forks, watering cans, and spray bottles. All evidence that a 6 year old had hours of independent fun while mom got to sow spring veggie seeds.

Tucked into the garden today: baby corn, gai lan (Chinese broccoli), bok choy, atomic red carrots, chantenay carrots, sugar snaps, snow peas, and a lively red spring lettuce mix. French filet beans, edamame, bolita beans, black-eyed peas, red raspberries, and blue potatoes need to go in the ground later. Signs of life in the vegetable garden: yellow raspberries, asparagus, chard, rhubarb, strawberry, and the garlic growing like gangbusters. Around June 15, I'll be harvesting inchelium, early red, ajo rojo, and elephant varieties. Herbs are poking through and greening up: mint (grown in a pot in the ground), thyme, oregano, and I don't think the parsley ever stopped growing all winter. It's now lush and gorgeous.

Indoors - my tiny little orchid that I bought on a whim last year is actually in bloom! These pretty flowers have been open for probably a month. It's shaken my orchid-killer rep and moves me to lovingly care for the orchids I got for free at the National Museum of Natural History's Orchid Show (still running if you're near the DC area).

By the vents and on the heating pads are seeds started last night. Come summer, I will be harvesting: tomatillo, charentais melon, tomatoes (hillbilly, Cherokee purple, isis candy cherry), peppers (ancho, cayenne, jalapeno, habanero), watermelon, and basil.

And my favorite early spring sight - hellebores. How did you spend YOUR first day of mud pie season?