A Gardener's Year - February

In the kitchen I have two small bowls with seeds from last summer's flowers. It is mid-February and still deep winter in Trøndelag, but the days are longer and the calendar tells me it is time to start preparing the summer garden.

For a couple of months now the kitchen dresser will be transformed into a greenhouse, with terracotta pots filled with brown, rich soil with tiny little dreams of colours hidden deep inside. How I love this time of the year, with all its dreams.

The funniest book is following me all through my gardening year; Karel Capek's The Gardener's Year. Capek became a passionate gardener late in his life, and after several years working eagerly year round in his own garden, he wrote this book and illustrated it with his own funny ink drawings. If you are a gardener, or want to be a gardener, or just love a good read this book is a must. (And if you buy it through this link it will help me buy books from amazon.....)

The snow blanket is still thick in my garden, and I am tempted to quote Capek:

"The devil only knows why in leap years one day is added to precisely this ficle, catarrhal, crafty runt of a month. In a leap year, a day ought to be added to the beautiful month of May so that there would be thirty-two of them, and that would be fine. What have we gardeners done to deserve this?"