Our days are 50 degrees, warm and sunny, alternating with snowy days. At a lower altitude these would be spring showers. The nights are warming up, though: we've got forecasts of overnight lows above freezing, so it's time to seriously consider planting some cold-weather vegetables outdoors. These are the ones where the seed packages say: "plant outdoors as soon as the soil can be worked." Our last frost date is at the end of May, so I will have to keep an eye on the nighttime lows and cover my crop with a sheet if it's going to drop down too far.

I can cheat mother nature and turn on the heat coils under my raised bed garden, but I'm saving that for sometime later in April or May, maybe mid-April; our nights will not warm up enough to get things growing without the heat boost until June some time. It's our first full season with the heated raised beds, so I am anxious to see how they work out.

It is important to plan a garden layout, but I simply haven't been able to get excited about that. I've got seeds sprouting indoors, but inspiration as to what to plant where will not strike until I'm out there looking at the dirt, trowel in hand. Let's hope I take the trouble to label the rows, although an element of surprise can give gardening a sense of fun. What is more likely to happen is I will figure out where to plant things on the fly, and then draw a map of where they are.