Pink snowdrifts
Apr. 12th, 2011 08:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaunthieIt's spring! At least technically so. We're having an unusually cold and wet spring this year, which sometimes makes it feel like more like winter (or fall) than spring, but the daffodils are blooming and the early tulips are up and the camellias are rioting. My rhodies haven't started yet, but I've seen a few really early ones going at it.
Unfortunately, the weather really hasn't been cooperating when it comes to gardening. The few dry(ish) days we've had have mostly been during the work week, when I am in the office. Jake and I have had to cancel our mutual gardening sessions two weekends in a row now, because it keeps raining on our chosen day, and because the soil is too wet to work.
Well, mostly.
As it turned out, after we cancelled this Sunday, it stopped raining. And it started to dry out. And my two remaining winter greens beds REALLY needed to be harvested, weeded out, and turned over.
So I did it. I harvested two HUGE shopping bags full of kale, and another two of swiss chard. I killed about a zillion snails (they love the chard, darn it). I thinned out and transplanted the volunteer garlic from the heads I missed last year into the third veggie bed, which I had already cleared and turned two weekends ago, and turned again before planting the garlic. And I weeded out and turned over those two beds. The rain came back in earnest about half an hour before I was really done, but I managed to finish bagging most of the produce in spite of it. I'll almost certainly need to re-turn the beds at least once before I plant, and add compost to both, but at least they're well on their way to being ready for spring planting. And boy, was I wet and muddy and cold by the time I came in, but I also felt quite accomplished and a teensy bit smug. Also antsy, because honestly, I should have had the first peas in *weeks* ago, and I've got baby onion starts just waiting to go into the ground, if the weather ever cooperates and I can get them from Jake.
In other garden news, the two raised side veggie beds I turned and planted a few weeks ago are showing nice progress on most of the seeds I put in. I have definite baby spinaches and swiss chards, and I *think* I've got baby radish starts, too. Unfortunately it really was too cold to start lettuces from seed outdoors, so I've got big blank spots in one bed. Oh well, I'll plant more radish seed there, probably. Or something.
But it is most definitely spring. And today, walking from work to the bus stop, I saw one of my favorite spring sights, a true sign that not only is it spring, but getting on into mid-spring, no matter what the weather is doing:
Pinkish-white drifts of cherry blossom petals.
Inches deep, some of them, and literally everywhere that you look. One of the areas I walk through on the way to the bus is a parking lot planted chock-full of ornamental cherry trees, and they're in full bloom. They smell heavenly, and they've dropped just enough petals to cause the drift effect against every edge and corner. The sky rains petals when the wind blows, and the drifts snake along the ground like living things, changing patterns endlessly with every shift in the breeze. The nearby grass is fringed and flocked with specks of pinkish-white.
And it never fails to improve my mood, no matter how busy or cranky-making the day.
Happy spring, everyone!
Unfortunately, the weather really hasn't been cooperating when it comes to gardening. The few dry(ish) days we've had have mostly been during the work week, when I am in the office. Jake and I have had to cancel our mutual gardening sessions two weekends in a row now, because it keeps raining on our chosen day, and because the soil is too wet to work.
Well, mostly.
As it turned out, after we cancelled this Sunday, it stopped raining. And it started to dry out. And my two remaining winter greens beds REALLY needed to be harvested, weeded out, and turned over.
So I did it. I harvested two HUGE shopping bags full of kale, and another two of swiss chard. I killed about a zillion snails (they love the chard, darn it). I thinned out and transplanted the volunteer garlic from the heads I missed last year into the third veggie bed, which I had already cleared and turned two weekends ago, and turned again before planting the garlic. And I weeded out and turned over those two beds. The rain came back in earnest about half an hour before I was really done, but I managed to finish bagging most of the produce in spite of it. I'll almost certainly need to re-turn the beds at least once before I plant, and add compost to both, but at least they're well on their way to being ready for spring planting. And boy, was I wet and muddy and cold by the time I came in, but I also felt quite accomplished and a teensy bit smug. Also antsy, because honestly, I should have had the first peas in *weeks* ago, and I've got baby onion starts just waiting to go into the ground, if the weather ever cooperates and I can get them from Jake.
In other garden news, the two raised side veggie beds I turned and planted a few weeks ago are showing nice progress on most of the seeds I put in. I have definite baby spinaches and swiss chards, and I *think* I've got baby radish starts, too. Unfortunately it really was too cold to start lettuces from seed outdoors, so I've got big blank spots in one bed. Oh well, I'll plant more radish seed there, probably. Or something.
But it is most definitely spring. And today, walking from work to the bus stop, I saw one of my favorite spring sights, a true sign that not only is it spring, but getting on into mid-spring, no matter what the weather is doing:
Pinkish-white drifts of cherry blossom petals.
Inches deep, some of them, and literally everywhere that you look. One of the areas I walk through on the way to the bus is a parking lot planted chock-full of ornamental cherry trees, and they're in full bloom. They smell heavenly, and they've dropped just enough petals to cause the drift effect against every edge and corner. The sky rains petals when the wind blows, and the drifts snake along the ground like living things, changing patterns endlessly with every shift in the breeze. The nearby grass is fringed and flocked with specks of pinkish-white.
And it never fails to improve my mood, no matter how busy or cranky-making the day.
Happy spring, everyone!
no subject
Date: 2011-04-14 07:43 pm (UTC)I, too, was wet and muddy, but I wasn't really cold. I've got to introduce you to Trogdor! :)
--J