Spring Wildflowers (and Veggie Dreams)

The weather has continued to be beautiful: Today's high is forecast for about 70 degrees, with a perfectly blue sky. As a native Minnesotan, I don't trust weather this nice in April. It should be in the mid-50's and raining, with a few sunny days interspersed with lots of cloudy days. However, it's been mostly in the 60's and 70's, with a few 80's, and the sun has been shining most of the month. In fact, it's dry and I need to water. So the question everyone "from here" is asking - how bad will the weather be in May?

Whatever the case, I've been making hay while the sun shines. Or at least working in the garden. It's become beautiful and gets greener every day.

The water birds have returned to the pond. I heard and saw a kingfisher last night. A great blue heron has stopped by a few times. And some of the egrets have returned. The only one we haven't seen is the green heron. The picture below was taken from inside the house, so the quality isn't that great. However, egrets are very camera-shy - if you try to get close, they take off.

We haven't had many ducks or any migrating warblers this year. I'm not sure if it's because we've been lulled into thinking it's later in the spring that it really is by our beautiful weather, and they're still coming. Or, perhaps because of the weather they just kept flying north. Or, worst of all, they aren't coming at all.

These violets are all over our yard. I haven't determined exactly what they are. They have more of a purple blush than Canadian violets, and are way too purple to be sweet violets. In any case, they're a beautiful reminder of why we don't use chemicals in our yard.

We also have Wood Anemone (anemone quinquefolia var. quniquefolia) growing in patches in the yard. Most of the pictures in the guidebooks show it with green leaves, but one mentioned that it occasionally has maroon leaves, which all of ours do. Interestingly, the MN DNR plant database says that Wood Anemone blooms in May, so perhaps we are a few weeks ahead in our spring this year.When I took this picture, it was early evening, so the flowers had already begun to close. I'll try to get another - better - one today.

 

But, what's most exciting of all (at least to me) is that my asparagus is coming up! I thought for sure it was dead after the deer ate all the foliage last August, but on Monday night I saw a few spears. I'm just so glad I didn't dig up and compost the entire bed as I had planned on Sunday!

As I mentioned yesterday, I managed to re-pot most of my seedlings on Saturday and Sunday, along with expanding my light contraption at work. Here are the tomatoes.

The peppers look good.

I still have some seedlings that were just a bit small to transplant.

The expanded light set-up seems to be working. I added another bank of lights, as the number of trays I have is growing.

I finally had some seeds pop up on Sunday. Here is a bit of the pea and spinach bed.

Some of seeds in the roots and greens bed have started to come up. Good old Black Seeded Simpson lettuce is the first of the greens. The line of leaves below the string are Purple Plum radishes. As of this AM, there were a few more lettuces coming up (Revolution and Red Salad Bowl, I think), along with a lonely Chiogga beet.

Comments

[Ali]

Thanks for visiting my blog, I've returned the favor, and enjoyed the visit. I suspect we do share some zone issues, although your lot is lovely and wooded, while my property is more typical of rural village. I love the idea of listing the varieties you are trying in the garden this year, what a good idea! Must do that on my blog.

Blogging is turning out to be surprisingly addictive, and an interesting way to produce space for we the gardeners to gather and share knowledge, resources, skills, needs and together create community and gardens. Lovely. Thanks for sharing.

[Talbin]

Thanks, Ali. There are many times when I would give up "lovely and wooded" for a nice, open, "rural village" lot! I have sun, but just enough, and I spend a lot of time sizing up the neighbors' trees to see if cutting off a branch here or there would give me a few more minutes of sun.

And I agree, blogging is addictive. I've found myself drawn to English allotment blogs - I've linked to a few on my page. And I definitely plan to live vicariously through your blog as your chicks grow!