Bring Spring Inside This Year
So you’ve read through all the seed catalogs, sharpened and oiled all your gardening tools, and are looking longingly at the garden wishing there was something growing. Whatever you do, don’t go into the garden and start digging or tilling. The soil will become compacted and you can actually ruin it for the upcoming year’s crops. Instead, here’s what I do. Get a large vase, at least 10” tall and fill it with cool water. Then go out to your forsythia patch and cut a few stalks about 2’ long. You’ll get the best blooms if you take the younger stalks, nothing over ½” in diameter. Then arrange them in pleasing array, fastening the bundle with some twine or florist’s wire, and place into the vase. In about two weeks, depending on the warmth of the room they’re in, you’ll have beautiful yellow blossoms, just in time for the spring holidays. To further decorate the stalks, you can hang colored Easter eggs with ribbon and make it into an Easter egg tree. You can start a wonderful famil...