My very first catkins? Crossing my fingers!

They very first spear of 2025 and this year's crop of seedlings

Do you know these buds?

I moved cardboard from a new planting area and found some large earthworms getting ready to repopulate the area. Look at the sizes!
These are not composting worms, they'll be aerating and stirring the garden soil soon

Asparagus from last year's seeds are already sprouting! 2 weeks with 10 hours/day of light and bottom heated to 22.8C. around 70f.

Good germination so far, the barley is 4or5 yrs old.

Zone 5b. Started seeds today to test germination, lots of 5 & 6 year old stock. Most seeds last a lot longer than the package says, the germination percentage just goes down substantially. I did buy new seeds for this year but I won't waste the old ones. Alt txt gives details.

My new read.

The heater died in 1 of our large worm trays (95 cubic ft ) so I'm hand rescuing worms and they'll go into makeshift trays in the house basement til I can figure a fix for the large tray.

First seed catalog arrived. That's a month earlier than it's been for 30 years or more.

It might be snowy outside but when the family is in a food coma later I'm going to get the asparagus seeds started so I can plant them later this spring

We're a small scale worm farm near Denver Colorado focused on sustainable fertilizer for local food gardening.