I had avoided planting anything but the pansies this week as there was a prediction of frost Early Saturday morning. The temperature dipped overnight to 29°.

Friday afternoon, I brought all of the vegetable plants onto the back porch and brought in the hanging baskets as well. Everything survived. We have a busy weekend, and I will plant on Monday. The 14-day forecast shows no frost, so we should be safe.

We made a road trip today to Woldhuis Sunrise Nurseries in Grant Park, Illinois, this afternoon. It was a three-hour round trip, but given the pricing and selection, we thought it would be worth it. It was. The pricing is 50% to 75% off what I would pay for plants at our local nurseries. Given how many spring plants I buy, that discount is a big deal.

The nursery has about 9 acres under glass, and the selection is enormous. It was cold outside in the wind, but the nursery is inside. I have seen nothing quite like it. The downside is that all the plants are on a concrete floor rather than on tables. The customers were mostly our age, so it was fun to get plants up and into a cart. The aisles aren’t much wider than a cart, which slows things down. It took us a couple of hours to load up our carts, mostly because we weren’t used to the greenhouse’s organization.

Acquiring these plants is likely going to be way more work than planting them. I did pretty well with my list, but there are some varieties I will need to get at Countryside and Goebbert’s. In addition to the vegetable plants, we bought four hanging baskets and a flat of pansies. I filled up the car; nothing else would have fit in. It was definitely worth the trip.

My plan for this week was to move the two planter boxes being replaced by a new steel bin. I hoped to use them to replace the two worst wooden planters. I emptied and moved one of them yesterday, Wednesday, and it fell apart during the move. One of the existing planters was leaning, so I tried to straighten it, but the bottom collapsed, and all the dirt spilled onto the ground. The remaining planters are in poor condition, with rotted dovetail joints at all corners. I went in, checked Amazon, and found steel planters of the same size for $60 each. I ordered four, and they will be here on Friday. The old planters are beyond repair.

Today, on Thursday, I emptied five of the planters and disassembled them. So, my space is clear for the new planters.

I got one of the new planters built on Friday and went to Goebbert’s opening day! I bought Romaine lettuce, Pak Choi, Broccoli, and Red and White Onions. This year, I remembered to check all of the labels.

Saturday was a little on the cool side, but I built another planter and set 12×12 concrete pads to put the four new planters on. I built another planter and got two planters installed, filled with soil, and planted. I worked for about six hours straight and made good progress.

I’ve got a good start on the garden and am on schedule. It is supposed to rain tonight which will be good as I don’t have the water hooked up yet. I am hoping I can get the last two planters built tomorrow. I can do that on the back porch if it is raining.

There is rain in the forecast for most of the week, but we’ll be in the 70s. I haven’t seen RT yet, but they usually start the third week of April. The big job will be getting the three new beds built and installed and filled with dirt.

Sunday was much warmer, with the temperature almost hitting 80°. The rain held off until I put the last shovelful of dirt into the fourth planter. Benedicamus Domino! We had an extremely large wind gust this afternoon. One took the roof off my SunCast shed. I set it back on and am praying for no more wind until I can repair it. In any case, I reached my goal of assembling and installing the last two planters.

I cut my first Garlic Chives today for our salad. and for the Ravioli Lemon-Butter sauce I made. I rarely use these chives as I have found a bit of an unpleasant cabbage flavor. These were wonderful and did not have that unpleasantness. Maybe that develops later in the season. Maybe I need to cut them down more often.

The temperature was 70° today, so I took a walk through the garden to start my planning. The garden is really ready for cleanup, but the ground is a little wet. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time today as I need to run over to exercise.

I will probably only be able to get two trellises in a raised bed as they are three feet wide. The pea bed is twelve feet long. So I need to go to plan “B”. I don’t think I can get the new beds in and filled with dirt in time to plant peas. The ground will likely be too wet to move dirt over. I could put the new beds in and just plant inside them without the extra dirt. Planting might be tough, though. I could plant in the existing bed, though. I don’t think I want to use two beds for peas. I need to check the harvest date from last year………….

I was picking peas at the end of June last year after planting them on April 30.

The chives are about three or four inches tall. If the weather warms back up after the coming cold snap, we could be cutting in a few weeks. The rabbits chewed the bark on some of the blackberries, but it doesn’t seem as bad as last year.

I saw a post last night about Costata Romanesco Zucchini, which said it had a delicious, unique flavor, so I went searching and wound up staying up until almost 1:00 AM, placing a seed order with Johnny’s Seeds. I had ordered from them a few years ago, and they had some unique vegetables that I couldn’t get from Terroir. It will also spare me from last-minute seed purchases at Goebbert’s or Home Depot. Here’s what I bought:

Costata Romanescu Zucchini

Katrina Mini Cucumbers

Deep Purple Bunching Onions

KN Bravo Radish

Avalanche Snow Peas

Provider Beans

Seychelles Pole Beans

I woke up to thunderstorms this morning, and it will be sunny with temperatures in the low 70s on Sunday and Monday. I am hoping I can move the trellises for the peas to one of the raised beds, then move the two planter beds to replace the two bad ones, and then enrich the soil in all four beds. I am probably only a couple of weeks away from my first plantings of peas and radishes.

In the wee hours of the morning on February 1, 2026, I placed my spring seed order with Terroir Seeds! Let the gardening begin!

• 
• 1 x Chilhuacle Negro Hot Pepper Seeds – (Capsicum annuum)
• 
• 2 x Maximilian’s Sunflower Seeds – (Helianthus maximiliani)
• 
• 4 x Slow Bolting Cilantro Seeds – (Coriandrum sativum)
• 
• 1 x True Lemon Cucumber Seeds – (Cucumis sativus)
• 
• 1 x Cucamelon/Mouse Melon Seeds – (Melothria scabra)
• 
• 1 x Cocozelle Zucchini Summer Squash Seeds – (Cucurbita pepo)
• 
• 2 x Genovese Basil Seeds – (Ocimum basilicum)
• 
• 2 x Sweet Basil Seeds – (Ocimum basilicum)
• 
• 1 x Giant of Italy Parsley Seeds – (Petroselinum crispum var. latifolium)
• 
• 1 x Flat Leaf Parsley Seeds – (Petroselinum crispum var. latifolium)

I woke up to frost this morning as expected. We’ll see if it killed everything.

Frost was predicted for Thursday night, so I picked everything I could. I had picked all of the ripe and semi-ripe tomatoes a few days ago and have been trying to use them up. I found three or four when I was picking today. I forgot to pick the serrano peppers and didn’t get to pick the Tomatillos as I ran out of time. (The Serranos and Tomatillos survived the frost so I picked them on Saturday.)

The Poblano and Green Peppers had much of damage and spoiled peppers as the tops of the peppers were being eaten. I’ve seen some droppings on the peppers, so I assume it is mice or voles. I won’t try to salvage those peppers because of the possibility of Hanta Virus.

I found that I can freeze the Serrano Peppers whole. I set a bag of Peppers and Tomatillos aside for Fr. Rodolfo, took some over to Steve and Jeff, and the rest will get frozen over the weekend. And that’s it for the garden.

It’s time to start putting away food for the winter. Last week I picked a colander full of small Early Girl II tomatoes and made tomato sauce. I used it on Stuffed Eggplant Parmesan with three beautiful eggplants from the garden. We used the remainder to make spaghetti. It passed the “Annabelle Test.” She was with us this past weekend and loved it.

I cleaned and packed four freezer bags of red Jalapeños over the weekend. There are still lots of Jalapeños in the garden and I will keep sharing and using them until the first frost when the remainder will go in the freezer.

Today I finished the second tray of chives for the freezer. A week ago, I chopped and froze chives, parsley, and basil in olive oil in and stored ice cube trays. That should supply us with fresh herbs throughout the winter. The rosemary and sage usually last until almost February in the garden.

I have a large amount of poblano peppers that I will start freezing. There are lots of smaller green peppers that I hope will grow a bit before I need to pick them. The zucchini is near the end, and the tomato plants are dying off, but we’ll have tomatoes until the first frost. At this point no frost is predicted through the end of October. Global warming isn’t all bad.