There are a lot of little things going on in the garden that hint at the spring days ahead. The dogwood is the big undeniable thing, shouting that Spring has arrived. When we first moved in, there may have been a bloom or two that first spring. As the trees have been thinned out and the tree has gotten more sun, it has responded with a big show. If I had begun this garden as a blank canvas, this is not the location I would have placed this tree. But it is the one tree in the entire yard I have never contemplated cutting down. Everything else has to work around it.
It is always interesting to get off the ground for a bird’s eye view. Although it feels like spring is coming on fast, it would be nice to see a little more green in these pictures. In the coming months, I’ll post some more of these. It will be quite a contrast. At least, I hope it will be!
Although only two or three days shorter than other months, February always seems to fly by. Of course I was busy and even though I wanted to to grab some pictures and post a few, no posting happened. I did manage to snap a couple of pictures, but not as many as I should have. Spring has really taken hold and I love finding all her surprises while wandering around the garden. There was also work to do. I had a crew come and cut down a couple of trees and trim a few others. They left me with these nice piles of firewood and wood chips. I’ll have to wait a while to put the firewood to use, but the chips are spread around the front yard and things are looking tidy.
Bigger than it looks!Wood chips down, daffodils up!
Although I admire the joyfulness of daffodils announcing spring, the elegant Lenten rose is the first flower in my garden to shake off its winter slumber. I am always glad to see it bloom.
Helleborus ‘Frost Kiss Moondance’
Another flower that surprised me in February was this peach. This tree is a volunteer from the compost pile and seems to like the spot it has made home. I am not sure when I first noticed it, maybe it is 5 years old now. I’d love to get a peach (or two!) off of it, but it is in a shady spot, so I am not getting my hopes up. The flowers are a beautiful and welcome surprise, nonetheless.
A Spring Surprise
February flew by and March seems to be on the same pace. I have been busy in the garden, both planting and building. This time of year is always so hopeful. I know the garden I am going to get in a few months time is nothing like the garden I have been planning all winter. Spring is here, though, and it is time to see what happens when my plans and Mother Nature collide!
I sketched out my planting plans a couple of months ago so I could go ahead and order any seeds I needed. Of course I was well aware that things could change, but I was feeling pretty good that I had made thoughtful, well reasoned choices. I am focusing a lot on the Spring season this year. Previously I had limited the Spring plants because I wanted to get the warm season plants in and then out for the Fall plants. But Fall is terrible in this garden, too much shade and too many bugs, and sometimes that doesn’t matter because it is just too hot to get the seeds started anyway. So the plan is to let Spring ride for a while and get the Summer crops in later than in the past and try to keep them producing for longer. Basically I am abandoning the Fall season, though I’ll probably put out some kind of cover crop if there is open space due to whatever complication (insects, weather, rabbit, deer, etc.) arises. So I filled the Spring plan with a couple of my recent winners and a couple of new items, like kohlrabi and shelling peas, ordered the seeds and was ready to go.
I started planting this weekend. Of course, this being the second year of this ‘full’ garden, I had no idea how many seeds I needed. Usually a pack of seeds might last 2 or 3 seasons. Unfortunately, the peas I got only filled about a quarter to a third of the space allotted. I wasn’t going to purchase more seeds. I was looking through my bin of old seed for alternatives, when I had my genius idea of the week. I’d planted a few strawberries in a shady front bed where not much grew as a ground cover. Of course they took the place over in a couple of years. They flower and send runners everywhere and I see some fruit which of course always disappears before I can get to it. But what if I dug some of those plants and moved them the garden on plastic the way the pros do? Spread them out, protect them? Worth it? I guess I’ll find out. A harmless experiment. Around here the PYO strawberry places run for about the month of May, so I’m hoping I can get a few strawberries around that time and then be able to move them out. Sweet Potatoes go in these beds for the Summer so they’ll have to share the space for a month or two, but it should work out OK.
Very Professional!
I love being able to make changes in the garden and try new things. Although things don’t always work out, I learn and move on. Maybe my experiments are more successful than they used to be, maybe not. It is nice to think I might be getting better at this gardening thing, but it doesn’t take long to be brought back to reality when the season really gets going!
This time of year I am full of optimism about the garden. It is full of life and energy, and I love walking around seeing all the plants waking up!
Already going strong: Plenty of lettuce Cilantro Cabbage Garlic Peas Onions Carrots and Radishes just starting to come up
I harvest herbs – green onions, parsley, thyme, oregano and mint all through the winter, but it is now time to start harvesting some lettuce. I have tried to keep track of my harvest in the past and have failed to do it consistently so that is really going to be a focus this year.
I was just out of town for a week and, as usually happens, the plants that I had ordered at least a month before showed up a couple of days before I was to leave. It was only four, two paw paw and two serviceberry and they went into the ground without much fuss. The weather wasn’t great while we were gone. A pretty strong storm moved through and then the temperature dropped, maybe giving us the last frost of the season. We’ll see.
Apple blossoms. Malus spp.
Everything was safe and secure upon return. The new plants seem just fine in their new home. Now the heat is on. I removed the last of the row cover as some lettuce underneath was on the verge of bolting. That part of the bed is now exposed to the rabbits and deer and squirrels, so we’ll see how that goes. Although I was trying to wait until at least the weekend, I couldn’t help myself and today I planted out a few cucumbers. Of course, I had to do it because I needed the pots for some squash that was outgrowing its cells.
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail – Papilio glaucus
I have way more seedlings going than I have room for. And I mean in the garden, not just inside. I’ll plant them in any sunny spot I can find, though. If I run out of sunny spots, I’ll just give them away. Too many things can go wrong, and I like to start thick and then thin if there are too many survivors.
Too hot in the attic so the seedlings had to move to the less sunny porch.
Today was also the first real harvest of the year (there are always some herbs out there that I can scrounge up). 10 1/2 ounces of mixed lettuces, with some pea tendrils and mustard sprouts thrown in, just because. Plenty for some beautiful salads, and even more out there if the rabbits don’t get to it first.
About a week ago, I went with the family on a short hike around White Pines Nature Preserve near Sanford, NC. It is a beautiful area, and the spring wildflowers were just starting to show off their blooms.
Virginia Spring Beauty Claytonia virginicaBloodroot Sanguinaria canadensisSlender Toothwort Cardamine angustataRound-lobed Hepatica Hepatica americanaTrout Lily Erythronium americanumNorthern Spicebush Lindera benzoin
As Spring arrives, I have been reflecting on a couple of things I have learned this winter in the garden. I probably should not consider winter a gardening season, but I can’t stop myself. Every season should be a gardening season. Winter always seems to set the tone for the year, anyway. I am not a great planner and winter is the time to plan. To get better at planning, I have been trying to take better notes about the garden, particularly noting when I do things or just when things happen. This is beginning to pay off, especially with seed starting. I have been starting seeds for several years, but this has by far been the smoothest effort yet. I have been using my notes to build a schedule of when to start different seeds, how many, when to pot them up and when to plant them out. There are still some tweaks to be made, but I am very happy with how the seed starting has gone. Next year will be even better!
Lactuca sativa ‘Yugoslavian Red’
On the other hand, I did really push the season this year. I sowed seeds and put out plants way earlier than I have in the past. At first I thought it was great. Things were coming up in January. The growth wasn’t quick, but I thought just getting things established was a good head start. But it turns out just because a plant can survive below freezing temps, doesn’t mean they like it. The pak choi I seeded on 1/1 popped right up, but never grew. A couple of true leaves appeared at some point, but all of a sudden now they are bolting – tiny little flowers on tiny little stalks. It is kind of amazing, actually, but not the result I was hoping for.
Covers off for the picture, but I will be keeping them on well into the spring.
I only have a couple of sheets of row cover. In an effort to plant more of the bed earlier, I removed the cover from the first section planted and started more seeds in another section and covered it. In another section, I started other seeds with no cover. It is amazing the difference in germination and growth under the cover. A few weeks ago I considered buying some cover, but didn’t think it was worth it at that point. It was steadily getting warmer, so the cover wasn’t really needed, I thought. I was wrong. The plants under the cover look so much better and have grown so much more. Yes, some plants can survive the cold, but they don’t like it.
Happy lettuce.
The last lesson has actually been learned over the last year. I have been working at home and have been able to observe what happens throughout the day in the garden. The lesson is this- squirrels will eat anything. They are untamed ravenous herbivores. They shredded my overwintering chard. They ate the flower stalk, then the leaves of a pak choi I was letting go to seed. I watch them nibble dogwood buds. I even saw one munch my daughter’s Venus fly trap down to a nub. I thought their crimes were limited to digging through and tearing up beds, but no, I now believe they are worse than rabbits for eating my plants!
Over the last couple of weeks, I got most of the heavy lifting I wanted to get done around the garden out of the way. It seems like there are always projects to work on, but at the moment I am going to enjoy a little of the calm before the storm. Compost is spread, seeds are started, sprouts are sprouting, it’s too cold for insects, the weeds haven’t woken up yet and the squirrels have almost given up digging around all over the garden. There is not much to do but wait. I did order 2 paw paws and 2 serviceberries so I am waiting for them, as well. It is nice to enjoy the garden with out feeling as though I must do something. It is fun to watch it come to life. It takes a bit of patience this time of year, though. It seems so slow, but with the warmth and the sun, things are starting to perk up. The next few weeks will see big changes.
Yugoslavian Red Lettuce. About to plant out.Kale. The seed starting area was getting crowded, so some things had to be moved out.Sown radish and lettuce coming up under row cover.The section planted 1/1 has been out from under the cover for almost two weeks. Looking good, but growing slow. Garlic along the front is starting to look alive.Blueberry buds. Vaccinium spp.Lacinato Kale. Standing tall through the winter.Daffodil ‘Dutch Master’. Narcissus spp.
Sunday morning saw a few hours without rain, so I trudged back and forth through the muck to get this new bed underway. A pile of soil was delivered Friday and I hoped to have gotten it all moved over the weekend, but it was not to be. I’m just about halfway done. The forecast keeps changing, but this coming weekend is looking pretty good at the moment. It would be nice to get everything done, as the next several weekends after are booked with other commitments.
About halfway done.
There has been a lot of rain this year. So far, to date, we are 3.12″ above normal with a total of 8.52″. That is enough to leave my yard a soggy mess, and the low space between my house and the neighbor’s has been a pond for the last couple of weeks. This weekend really piled it on, too. Although I wanted to get out and get some things done around the garden, the cold (30’s) and steady rain kept me inside. I did find time to relax, which was nice. In a few more weeks when spring gets in full gear, there will be plenty to do, both in the garden and in life.
Slow growing in February.
The peas are making progress, but the mustard and pak choi don’t seem to have budged in the four weeks since they sprouted. In the attic, the tomatoes and cucumbers are sprouting. I have lettuce sprouts that need to find homes, and a bunch of brassicas, too. Soon enough there will be green everywhere.
Chillin’. Mourning dove, Zenaida macroura.
I know come August I will be hoping for a nice cool rain, but at the moment all I can say is ‘Enough already!’
Looking for spring. American robin, Turdus migratorius
I saw the first robins of the year over a week ago. Seems a bit early, but there are other signs of spring all around.
