Winter Woes and Springtime Dreaming

For the record, I actually enjoy winter.  In fact, I've been a bit dismayed thus far this year that there hasn't been more snow.  I don't like driving on slippery roads, but I love a good dusting that turns trees, shrubs, and fences into a sparkling diamond wonderland.  However, just in the last few days, I've been dreaming of spring as we have had two little sweethearts battling the flu, a storm that dropped 30 cm of snow on our city and followed it up today with a wind chill of -33 C (apparently that's -27.4 F for you Americans!).

This is the site where I hope a community garden will bloom next year (taken before the storm this weekend!)

Since I started blogging again, I've been visiting more and more blogs, particularly those with a focus on homesteading, children, cooking, gardening, and canning.  The majority of them are written in the US, and a few of them are starting to break my heart a little bit--they're already planting their gardens!  As in, peas are going in the ground.  And a blogger that I follow on twitter posted yesterday that it was 80 F in her hometown.  In February!  It seems dreamlike!

Now I know that, obviously, there are very different climates in the states, particularly in the south and on the west coast, compared to my fair isle.  Climates that allow avocados to be grown locally.  Where oranges and lemons are plucked from branches right outside the back door.  Where winter means rain, not snow.  But it still seemed so miraculous to me, when I read this week that there are places where right now fingers are deftly sowing pea (and other) seeds into the soil.

It makes me think about the things that I'd like to plant this year.  I don't yet have an established planting space--I'm hoping for the community garden, but even if it gets off the ground, this year might just be the year of getting the paperwork and infrastructure taken care of.  I am hoping to have a back-up plot out at my parents' cottage, but I'm not sure just how big it will be and it is pretty breezy out there on the north shore.  So I'm not going to make any far-fetched planting plans for this year, but am just going to go in with realistic goals of growing a few of the things that I know I will use.

Most important out of all of these? Tomatoes and basil!  I can smell them already.  I am so looking forward to working in the garden with the kids, especially James, who is at an age to enthusiastically help.  I feel so excited and motivated to get composting and digging and planting and watering and waiting.  Our last frost date is officially May 9th in Summerside, but I wouldn't put anything in before June 10th or so just to be on the safe side.  So I have a little waiting to do yet...

What vegetables have you found to be the most successful in your gardens?  And is there anything that I definitely have to plant?