Springtime

Let's take another peek at the garden...  First off, old hyacinths are looking pretty spindly these days.  Still, one of these just starting to open up can be smelled from quite a ways off in the yard!

Over the last year I lost two of the trees back on the apple fence, where I'm attempting to espalier the trees.  I decided to have one more go at it, especially now that the soil's been improved back there.  If these don't make it, I'll give up.  These two trees should be seriously dwarfed, and are supposed to be good for espaliering...  They arrived Thursday, March 31st, and I planted them that afternoon after giving a brief soak in a bucket of humate/algae enriched rain water.

The asparagus are starting to pop up.  And yes, that's a raspberry photobombing....

The peaches (pink flower buds) and Japanese plums (white flower buds) really need to dial back their enthusiasm.  We're about to drop back down to freezing temps and even have a little snow in the forecast.  It's because these trees bloom so early, and then suffer frost/freezing damage, that getting fruit from them is so difficult.

Here comes the garlic!  Guess I need to get that tomato cage out of the bed and brush off some of the leaves that might still be weighing down some of the sprouts, hunh?

Pussy willows and forsythia are starting to do their thing...

Some of the strawberries underplanted beneath the Japanese plums have been fizzling out, so last fall I ripped out most of them from two of the beds with the intention of replacing them this spring.  The new plants arrived Wednesday, March 30, and got planted the same afternoon.  Like with the new apple trees, they got swizzled around in a bucket of rain water (hey, we've had a lot of rain) that I drizzled a little liquid humate and seaweed into.  New strawberry plants don't look like much, but will hopefully take off and produce some yummy fruits.  The June-bearing Honeoye aren't supposed to be allowed to blossom this year, but the everbearing San Andreas just need their blossoms picked off for about the first month, and then I can let them do their thing!

Daffodils are still looking great!  No signs of any tulip flowers yet...

Hard to tell from this pic, but the blueberries are budding nicely.  Here's the four varieties I sacrificed one of my veggie beds for - let's hope they produce this year!

I tried seeding winter rye as a cover crop this past fall.  Now it just looks like I've got weedy grass in a couple of the beds.  I turned it all over as I was moving the trellis into this bed, and so far the rye seems pretty tough.  I'll need to chop at it and turn it over some more real soon...and it sounds like I'm not supposed to plant into it for a few weeks since it'll tie up nitrogen as it breaks down, plus it has allelopathic properties.  I might just mound some compost on this bed because I need to be planting peas ASAP!

The currants are really leafing out!

Just a couple more shots of the backyard...which I really need to be mowing next dry spell!