The season of spring has officially started here in Central Ohio and I am all a flutter. We’ve been having some very warm weather lately, and so many of the bulbs have popped up before their usual time. The crocuses, hellebores, and mini “tete a tete” daffodils are in bloom now, and the garden is definitely waking back up again.

I’ve had to stop myself from running outside with the pruning sheers (don’t run with shears, kids) to start cleaning up the beds. Until the daytime temps average in the mid-50s, bugs like solitary bees and black swallowtail butterflies could be hiding away in the stems and debris so I’ll wait just a bit longer to make sure that everything has a chance to hatch and fly off before I start cutting back the perennials.

The husband and I did spend a bit of time doing some invasive species removal today, though. Amur Honeysuckle grows along the back side of our fence, and into the woods behind the house. It’s a nasty plant, that’s taken over many areas in Ohio and the Midwest. Amur honeysuckle grows very quickly and is tough to get rid of. We head behind the house every few years to take out a winters worth of frustrations on the stuff, hacking away at the branches before the plant wakes back up and starts throwing seeds all over the place again. We didn’t make it terribly far yet (the prickly branches of another invasive plant, Multiflora Rose, put up a good fight and wore us out), but that’s the current project.

Next on my agenda is to have some dirt delivered to top off our raised beds before I start filling them back up with veggies and herbs over the next few months. I’ve started a few of the seeds for the season already: the peppers, tomatoes, indigo, rudbeckia, yarrow, leeks, and cantaloupe are under the grow lights now, inside. Soon it will be time to start a few of the cool season crops outdoors, like our spinach. I also need to haul the cold frame back up from the basement to the deck. I don’t have enough space inside to start all of my seeds so the cold frame will save me some space indoors, as well as the need to have to harden off any sprouts I start outside. Score!

In plant-adjacent news, I am officially finished with my Master Gardener Volunteer classes! Our classes have been taking place every Friday since January, and we have a final exam later this week. Then, we are able to begin volunteering at different spots all over the county as Master Gardeners, helping with every thing from addressing food insecurity in our community, to cataloguing trees at the local arboretum. I’ve learned more than I could have ever expected in our classes, and can’t even express how honored I feel to have been chosen to participate in this years program. There are so many outstanding people in our area doing amazing things with plants, and I am so excited to be a part of their work.

For our first year as MGV interns, we’re expected to volunteer at a variety of spaces, to make sure the hands-on portion of our training is well rounded. I am really looking forward to getting outside this spring. I spent a few hours this weekend drafting up a spreadsheet (my favorite activity, aside from actually gardening) with a list of the sites I hope to work at, and this gardening season is definitely shaping up to be an exciting one.

That’s all I have for this week. Hope your spring season is off to a pleasant start. Happy gardening!