Last Updated on June 20, 2024 by Michelle
Spring rains are never such a dulcet melody as when they follow a cold, harsh winter. And spring joys are never as rich as moments spent planning this summer’s garden.
Although our first New England winter was beautiful, and most days were graced with a fresh white powder making everything magically new again, I will admit I was relieved to hear it was not a typical winter.
Baby It Was Cold Outside!
Indeed, it was the coldest one recorded in the previous 137 years. Thankfully we haven’t had so much snow, requiring so much routine roof raking every winter. Thankfully my husband hasn’t had to wake even earlier than usual every February morning to plow our driveway every day before heading to work and again for 1/2 an hour every evening when he returns, removing all the inches that accumulated during the day.
4 Ways We Spent the Long Cold Nights
But the long winter evenings always give us time to bake and perfect some hearth-baking recipes,
time to braid, braided rugs that will hopefully be ready to warm our feet next winter,
time to read together in front of the wood stove (our current read is Pride and Prejudice, oh how we adore the misunderstood Mr. Darcy), and time to watch old movies and stay up late. We love sleeping in late and still accomplishing a full day’s worth of school work while traditionally-schooled children have difficulties of delayed starts, canceled days, and extended school years. Yes, late-night movies are a joy of homeschooling that my teens and I treasure on long winter evenings.
If you’d like some inspiration for wonderful ways to spend a long winter evening–as well as lists of my family’s favorite all-time reads–check out 9 Perfect Things to do on a Winter Evening.
If you’d like to get a little more peek into my 200-year-old farmhouse, and my cooking hearth that I am in love with, you wanna known the 3 Secrets Old-Farmhouse Owners Might Never Tell You.
But one of our favorite pastimes this oh-so-long New England winter, and even now as we listen to the quiet sounds of melting snow? Planning for summer.
How We Prepare for Summer
My gardener wasn’t pleased with our immature corn last summer–the northern growing season is too short for most varieties. So she planted her corn seeds in toilet paper rolls to give them a head-start this time around.
I thought my days of saving toilet paper rolls were long gone, gone with the days of preschool crafting of bunny finger puppets and mini Uncle Sam hats. So I was curious when she asked me in December to start saving our cardboard tubes. But it sounded ingenious to me when she explained how they’re the perfect bio-degradable container to house her seedlings, allowing her to transport them effortlessly right into the ground come May.
She let the tube-sheltered corn seeds sunbathe on a deep-set window ledge on sunny days, but away from the drafts and under a light on overcast days.
Keep reading for 5 amazing gardening tips you don’t wanna miss. Or browse on your own through all I’ve written recently about gardening.
Another thing I’m doing this spring? Planting my favorite potted plants ever indoors, while I wait for the ground to be ready to plant our vegetable garden.
Better yet, subscribe and milk my site for all it’s worth… snag my free ebook about my experiences as a 4th-generation gardener, where I share some very helpful gardening tips everyone needs know. All my ebooks are always available–to download for free–in my subscriber Resource Library.
Her lovingly-cared-for tomato, pepper, and squash seedlings, bursting through the potting soil, offer promise of new life and delicious summer salads and soups. Their beautiful green assurance is the perfect accompaniment to the warm sunshine infusing our home and the lulling sound of melting snow dripping off our roof.
5 Helpful Gardening Tips
Let’s face it, the last few days of winter and the often cold beginning of spring (okay, cold here in New England) are the hardest for a gardener to wait through. So here are some of my favorite tips to inspire you while you wait. If you enjoy these, you will love my book, Beautiful Gardening, available to download for free in my Resource Library. 
Who and I kidding? I’m the one needing the inspiration!
Starting Seeds
If you’re considering this idea for a seedling starter, please read my verdict about it–and get ideas for many other ingenious (mostly free) planters–in this post about 6 Ingenious Seed Planters.
Welcoming the Right Critters
If you’re serious about gardening, you wanna make sure you welcome frogs and toads to your garden. This post mentions why and how to do it.
Enjoying the Sweet Buzz
If you’re really serious about gardening, you know how valuable bees are to your efforts. If you’ve ever considered beekeeping, don’t miss these valuable free resources on that sweet subject.
Creating a Place to Grow
Also, if you garden, you need stakes and trellises. Read this post for some inspiration on making beautiful free garden trellises.
Making Black Gold for Your Garden
Finally, the best gardeners know it all comes down to the dirt. Read here about the One Thing Every Gardener Should Do.
So with snow-free shingles, today we celebrate the coming spring, along with its rains and the mud season it will surely usher in with gusto.
The New England snow, rain, and mud are all good, because this is where God has lovingly planted us.
Here we are wrapped in His love, sunbathing in His kindness, and kept warm by the shelter of His promises when the skies are overcast. So it is surely where we will flourish, even amidst the rain and mud.
“Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the spring rains that water the earth.” Hosea 6:3
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The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.
Psalm 24:1
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You will be relieved to hear that I have lived in New England my whole life, and this is the first winter I have EVER heard of people needing to rake their roofs at peril of having them cave in otherwise. And 60-70″ of snowfall is more the norm for a snowy winter, rather than the 100+ that we got this year.
Yes, I am very glad to hear that roof raking will not be an annual necessity! And, in our neck of the woods, our official count was–I’m told–114 inches. Seventy inches in future winters would sit just fine with me!