SRS you cause me to feel guilty. Every year I start a garden journal, and every year I fizzle on it. And I KNOW what a valuable tool it is.

Joybell--I love hearing about your garden. The flora and fauna all sound so exotic to me. Would love to see not only the garden, but some of the critters also. You don't by any chance have any pics on the web do you?

Bobert--I did confront the lady but was so flabbergasted I was probably way too polite.

Carol--any chance you planted broccoli raab (spelling) instead of regular ol' broccoli?

It is great to hear about the differences in our gardens from zone to zone. Lots of overlap on daffs and tulips, but everything else is at very different stages in their growing cycles. If I grew broccoli, it would still be 3 weeks away from harvest size.

My garden is entering the "tween" time now. The daffs and tulips are just about all spent. I have a few bleeding hearts and pulmonaria at their peak, but mostly there are just buds on the mid-spring bloomers like hersperis, lily-of-the-valley and columbine. The ever familiar and faithful pansies and violas have to carry the show for now.    The lettuce that I planted last fall is starting to bolt and this year's crop is just reaching harvestable size. I pinched out the flower buds on the kale and can probably get another month out of it before I need to pull it up. Tops of the green onions are still small. The peas are only 6 inches tall. Tomatoes and peppers are ready to go in the ground, but we are having an unusually cool and dry spring. I will probably wait to plant the warm season veggies until very late April or early May.

We finally got a good rain this week. Don't you love the way a spring rain sets everything to growin'?

Janie