Another layer of fun this year was the addition of new folks selling their wares: Cincy Apparel, Deadstar, Southpaw Prints, Rockit, and Allscreen set up for the first time. And returning there was Park + Vine, Alternative Motive, Donkey Ts, Anonymous Skate Shop, Unheardof Boutique, Able Projects, Ski Cincinnati and Proforma Albrecht.

Top it all off, there was a Reds game and music from You, You’re Awesome, Pop Empire, Flux Capacitors, The Western.

Days like this and  we’re proud to have such a vibrant downtown.

Alright, enough with the words, here’s a whole slew of pictures from the day.

Chris snapped this picture of me with his new iPhone 4. This is the photo, with not a bit of retouching, which only added fuel to the fire to my current internal debate. My point and shoot that I keep in my bag at all times bit the dust, so I was contemplating a new pocket camera. But with the new 5 megapixel camera, it makes me think maybe one device can serve two purposes. I’m all about having less stuff. But maybe I’m rationalizing.

See what all that fresh air does to a person?

Over lunch we were doing some blue-skying about projects and thought out loud, “Wouldn’t it be nice to work on a porch today?”

Now there’s a porch across the way from the studio, but we never go over there and use it.

That changed today.

Between the new chicks, the tadpoles we’re raising, the seedlings that are peeking their heads out of the soil, and the blossoms on the apple trees, it’s impossible to deny: spring has sprung.

Some interesting tidbits about chicks:

1. Much like human babies, they move in a continual cycle that is something like this: eat, sleep, poop, and peep. They seem to do each of these things for about 4.6 seconds at a time.

2. If you look closely at the second photo, the white dot on the chick’s beak is its “egg tooth” which helps it break through the egg shell when it hatches. As of this morning, most of them had already fallen off.

3. Baby chicks seem to have a bit of narcolepsy. They’ll be doing something, and then all of a sudden they sink to the ground and fall sound asleep. Apparently, this is quite normal, and is extremely entertaining to watch.

(This post might seem like filler, but trust me, it’s a big deal.)

But we really don’t know exactly what we’re doing. We’re reading books and digging up resources, and then we’re going to wing it and hope it goes well. New to this gardening thing? Join us on our journey! An old pro? Oh, please, give us some advice.

This month we’re working on planning. From what I can gather, we should begin starting some seedlings in early March, and I keep hearing that we’re already behind!

My dream garden is this massive spread of green from which we could sustain ourselves completely. Something like this garden plan from one of my favorite books by John Seymour.

The great thing about this book is that it also offers much smaller garden plans to accommodate different  amounts of real estate. (And more realistic plans for those of us who need to remember to keep our feet on the ground.) We have good friends who planted their garden in the front yard of their suburban house, since it was their sunniest spot. Make use of what you’ve got seems to be the name of the game!

I’ve been hunting around for good planning tools, and this is what I’ve found so far:

Gardener’s Supply Kitchen Garden Planner
This is an interactive tool that allows you indicate how much space you have available, and then drag and drop your vegetables. When you’re done planning the garden, it assembles a planting guide for your use.

Martha Stewart’s Seed Starting Worksheet
Once you know what you’re planting, begin figuring out when you’ll need to start seedlings or start putting things in the ground.

Hume Seed Planting Chart
How much do you need to plant to feed your family? This always stumps me a bit, but I found this chart that indicates the number of plants you would need for a family of four for several basic vegetables. This seems like a good starting point.

Please give us a shout if you know of other great resources!