A Distinct Lack of Snow!!

It was a GORGEOUS day today in PA!  The snow is gone, the car made it up the driveway for the first time in a month, and I got to play in the garden.  Granted I was just hauling chicken poo from the shed to the garden and fertilizing, but it felt really good to be outside again.  Normally, adding fresh chicken poo is a bad thing, but my last frost date is not for another 3 months so it will have plenty of time to mellow before planting season begins.   As chicken manure is really high in nitrogen, I'm not tossing alot of it in any one place. 

In less than a month I can start seedlings in my house and I can't wait.   I plan on buying one of the metal shelving units and shoplights from Walmart and wrapping it all in plastic to contain moisture/heat.  This will go over a heat register and I'm hoping this will help with heat and a slight breeze to help strengthen the plant stems. 

My tomato plants that I've been overwintering in the pantry are still doing alright.  They are in a south facing window with supplemental lighting.  I'm pinching off all flowers so the plants put all their energy into new growth.  They are being watered with about a cup of day old coffee diluted with water daily.  I have started pruning the new growth which goes straight into spare canning jars to root in water.  These are being kept right next to their parent plant.  This is going well and I'm expecting to get at least 50 new Paquebot Roma's this way.  Not a bad return from two tomato plants I dug up in the fall and brought inside.  I got a couple tomatoes a week for a few months and now will get at least $100 worth of new tomato plants (not that I would ever pay big box store prices for tomato plants).