Long time, no post. Rain.

 It's been cloudy and rainy for a few days so haven't been out to the garden much. It poured yesterday with gusty wind and today it's partly cloudy with light wind. Supposed to rain some more on the weekend as well. 

A few pictures of progress. The compost pile is building (that's a picture from a few days ago) but because of the rain it's not drying out as much as it should. I am loading the container with whatever scraps and peels I make so I feel good about reducing the compost waste going in the trash. Wish I could do the same with our other recycling. 

The garlic is growing leaps and bounds so far, the top photo is from four days ago and it's already growing a third leaf by today. YAY! I might have my own garlic by summer. Knock on wood, crossing fingers and the gophers don't rise. Need to make sure the soil gets some food and maybe a bit of sulphur or other equivalent so that garlic has some flavor.

It is definitely rainy season for us now, unfortunately the next rain is due on the weekend and normally I'd be bummed but that's what working in a retail nursery does. I'll just be sitting inside, might even put some seeds out before then in the garlic bed and maybe the other bed. Work in the fertilizer I have left and hope for the best. Might even do that tomorrow. Going to be partly cloudy and hopefully in the 70's. Yep, tha's what I'll try to do tomorrow. That south bed has the best soil and is mostly protected. May even throw some more garlic in there. I have discovered that my lovely soul mate loves tomatoes especially Roma tomatoes so guess that's going to be on my list of things to plant when it gets warmer.

Slowly going to gear up for planting. Unfortunately any extra money I may have had was eaten up by a mistake on my part so no new soil this month. Probably not next month either due to having to get my car smogged and registered. If it isn't one thing it's another right?

The hawks have been calling the last few days but not sure if they are sticking around as I heard the crows giving them grief as well, parrots were going crazy flying through and I heard a Mourning Dove this morning and yesterday. Ah the sounds of the cycle of the seasons marked by animals. The hummingbird nest I forgot to check on today when I walked past (which is something she likely considered as no one pays that plant any mind). Will try and remember to check it later today. 

So rain and more rain as it should be. By March we will have warm weather again and be staring down the barrel of another hot summer. It's odd because I followed the weather and the seasons but so much happened when I was working people would ask when certain plants would come in and I honestly didn't know when. Could be this week or tomorrow, seriously could not tell them but I used to have a better idea. People would be asking for pansies in January and we knew it was cool season but one frost and they were toast. Same thing with the bedding begonias, rain and frost wipes them out. I remember tray and trays of those just looking like ugly mush after a frost.

Windy overnight, no frost. Still calm air and temps in the mid 30's, high dew point... definitely frost. Good for fruit trees too! That stick the lady planted doesn't seem to be growing much btw.