Spring Time in the Wild West

Springtime in the wild West desert of North Eastern Utah is not exactly what gardeners would call ideal conditions for planting. The weather is wacky, as is evidenced by the trampoline in our neighbor's tree, and all sorts of tumbleweed pileups along the fence lines! There is always a pretty good possibility of frost anytime before June, and I can depend on the wicked daily wind to pollute the air with dust, level our mailbox to the ground once again (however, hopefully not anymore now that we recently installed a sturdier post.), and blow our garbage can and all of its contents across the front yard.  As you can imagine, such wind would be fatal to tender vegetable transplants. 

This morning I woke up to the pitter patter of falling raindrops. I welcome the weeping heavens.  It means it is too warm to snow, plus it feeds our ground with the moisture it desperately needs. And I love the smell of rain, don't you?  Here's a look off of our front porch.

We are taking baby steps with our yard landscaping, as you can probably tell.  I'd like to draw your attention to the narrow strip on the bottom right-hand side of the picture between the house and the walkway. This is where we recently planted flowering sweet pea and yellow columbine seeds. I have hopes for a beautiful trellis scattered with fragrant sweet pea flowers and flourishing columbines at the base come this summer.  

Despite the springtime weather woes, there are some hardier plants that have a decent chance of survival and can take a hit or two of frosty weather (think peas, radishes, spinach, onions, and cabbage). That's what's going in our backyard veggie patch soon.  May the rains fall softly upon your fields 'til then.