We're having crazy warm weather here. On this day last year, we had a temperature of 2C and today, we got up to 16C. Yesterday the garden beds were dry enough to start raking, although it was still too wet to start on the grass. Not only did the back flower bed get raked of the pine needles that fall over the winter, but twice this amount of brush from fallen branches, unwanted buckthorn and wild plum saplings got removed. I even pruned the raspberry canes today, noting that there was a lot of winter kill, despite the mild temperatures, probably due to lack of snow cover.
I found a partial bag of potting soil in the greenhouse, so I planted a few seeds of three kinds of onions. I'll plant more green onions in a few weeks, so that we can harvest them successively. The Spanish onions are a long season storage onion and the White Welsh Perennial onion is a new one for this year, being a green onion which grows back year after year and is self seeding. It's too early to plant too much more without a cold frame, hoop house or other protection.
With the warm weather and sunshine, the chooks have found places to dust bathe. It's the oddest thing watching them fluff their feathers, roll in the dirt and then shake it off, like a wet dog shakes water. I tried to tell the girls, this was where I'd planted my Dyer's Coreopsis, but they didn't seem to care. I'll start some in pots and plant it there when they've found another, more suitable spot to dust bathe.
Checking out the fields behind our house. You can see the pasture in the foreground is still dormant, but something at the very back is starting to green up. I swear we have trees ready to leaf out already and that doesn't normally happen until May around here. As long as the pear trees don't flower early, it's all good. With a pretty much guaranteed chance of frost yet this spring, I'd rather not lose the pear crop this year.
I love the fresh, bright colour of the greens on the pine trees in the spring. Against the blue sky, it is a most beautiful colour combination. Later in the year, those greens will seem much darker and dull.
Checking out the fields behind our house. You can see the pasture in the foreground is still dormant, but something at the very back is starting to green up. I swear we have trees ready to leaf out already and that doesn't normally happen until May around here. As long as the pear trees don't flower early, it's all good. With a pretty much guaranteed chance of frost yet this spring, I'd rather not lose the pear crop this year.
I've only tried to plant onion seeds once but nothing came up. I really should try again. Looks like you've made good use of your pleasant weather! Lovely colors in that last photo.
ReplyDeleteIt's dry here and vacillates between cold and warm, always the danger of frost. I think this summer is going to be pretty rough for everyone.
ReplyDeletewe have ups and downs in temperature as well - and the ornamental plums already started flowering:( not sure about heavy frosts, but we usually get a cold week at the end of march or in april - and I am sure this year will be no exception.
ReplyDeletechickens everywhere but where they're supposed to go is one of the reasons we still don't have any! we used to have a hedge around the veggie plot, but after the hard winters half of it died down and we have to replace a lot of that! I don't want a fence, so we'll have to wait a while longer for "girls":) at least those with feathers!
enjoy the good weather while it lasts!
Bettina