Digging the garden in the middle of February? 

Yes, this is just the situation that happened this week. This February has been warmer than what we’re accustomed to. Usually, at this time of the year, the garden is covered in snow, and even if there’s no snow, the soil is still completely frozen, and we’re unable to do any garden work. The earliest we can start any soil work is in the middle of March.

This year the situation is completely different. The end of last year was really cold, the whole of November and December were frozen, with very low temperatures. I honestly thought with the cold beginning of winter, we’d have an extremely cold February, but that didn’t happen. The temperatures are quite high, the soil in the garden has thawed, and it’s now even warmer than at the beginning of March.

Since I didn’t have time to finish digging the garden during October, it seemed like a good opportunity to dig it on Monday. So, I spent Valentine’s day digging the leftover beds. To my surprise soil was perfect for digging, a bit wet from the light frost we had in the morning, but not too sticky or hard. Actually, the whole garden soil looks really good. The frost period helped to soften the soil, and since there was no real snow, the surface didn’t dense up from the weight. This year it shouldn’t be too hard to prepare the beds as there’s no need to dig them 2 or 3 times before planting and sowing.

Of course, Srećko was with me the whole time while I was digging. He thought I was trying to chase out the moles and mice, so he decided to help and dig around the orchard. Of course, his little shovels can’t be left in the garden, so we had to wash them before entering the house. Clearly, he wasn’t too happy about it.