Micro-microclimates

This is a story of three apricot trees.
Two trees, out front, are "Royal Blenheim," in back, a "Katy."
The Katy is the oldest, the front yard trees are roughly the same age.
They develop slightly differently, though.

The Katy blooms and leafs out first -- it's just a wash of spring green right now.

The slightly larger Blenheim is next -- still blooming, but at the end of its run for this year.

Finally, the one to the east end of the yard, still a bouquet.

They're not wildly different, just enough to notice.

Elsewhere, I'm trying to make a bird-free microclimate:

Bird netting -- threadlike nylon fishing net, cuttable as each intersection is a knot -- up one side, and Reemay along the other. Unfortunately, I may have out-clevered myself. The triple trellis of twine precludes arching netting over the bed.

With luck, the beans will be robust enough once I pull the covers off to resist the birds. One of the pleasures of growing things is trying out new approaches. Sometimes they work, sometimes they're information for the next time.

I really just want beans.

Laying foundations

Raise high the roofbeams, carpenters!

            Hymenaon, Sing the wedding song!

Up with them!

            Hymenaon, Sing the wedding song!

A bridegroom taller than Ares!

            Hymenaon, Sing the wedding song!

Taller than a tall man!

            Hymenaon, Sing the wedding song!

Superior as the singer of Lesbos—

            Hymenaon, Sing the wedding song!

—to poets of other lands.

            Hymenaon!

   

I used to read just to read. Stories went by like potato chips from a bag, leaving crumbs and a greasy ring. Sometimes it's still like that. "She'll read anything," they joked, "Even the back of a cereal box."

It was true. It is true. How can one not? Well, except that there isn't as much time. Even the quickest reader needs to show some discernment if time with books isn't going to be all junk. And maybe I'm so full of stories that my bucket is spilling over. As I move around the garden, snippets of writing, essays about gardening, thoughts and musings coalesce in my head. Carrying a voice-activated recorder would probably be smart.

But then I'd have to polish, to work, to get those essays out there.

Time be time, but it might be time to get the writing half of the reader dusted off.

Meanwhile, there are beans to plant, and bean beds to ready. Solving a problem before it's really presented, on the memory of the last time the problem showed up might be smart. And it might be work that is all for naught. I won't know if the very tall beans from last year will be better supported with a Very Tall Trellis or if I've spent an afternoon tying knots for no reason.

Not just twine and bamboo; it's soup and bean salad, green shoots pushing up through prepared soil, rough with hay and leaves, birds to thwart as they try to pull out sprouts before their time.

Calculating stresses, figuring out plans of attack, and wrestling with paragraphs that, like the beans, haven't yet manifested. If I can imagine bean plants and a harvest months from now, I can imagine an essay with polish, that says what I mean it to say. In the future.

Cake and swag

The birthday was celebrated in the nicest sort of way. The birthday girl:

Birthday cake, after takeout Indian food, consumed with family and neighbors, all sharing wonderful stories of the new grown-up as a baby ("Look at how young you guys were!" was perhaps my favorite quote) and themselves as eighteen year olds. Some of the stories made me even more grateful for the kind of eighteen year old I have! There were playing toddlers, the eighteen year olds of tomorrow -- and that's about how fast it feels!

She wasn't the only one to get a gift yesterday, though. The nice people at Home and Garden TV gardens (whew!) sent over a product for me to try, and I'm sold.

 

It's Worker B Rescue Putty. So great -- beeswax, honey, and olive oil. It's similar to a balm I made but the honey makes it much creamier. Maybe I'll finally heal my winter-rough cuticles. And I'd still be happy to blog for the nice HGTV folks, OR be a subject for a makeover show, just sayin'. . . Anyhow, if you ever wonder, "Should I buy this product for my very own hands?" the answer is probably heck, yeah!!

Eventually I will get back to blogging the garden, as my bird-defeating netting finally showed up!

An Adult

She's much bigger now.

Happy 18th birthday to our first finished object.

Increasing Signs of Life

The pepper plants are blasted by the late frost, but there may be overwintering life left -- the stems aren't blackened. I'll wait a few more weeks and clip back some of the worst-hit areas. Hopefully the best peppers will get a jump-start on the season and then be joined by newly-planted ones. Turns out I do want many more peppers than I had last year.

It's time to get into the hives. Pollen coming in means there must be brood. I noticed too many ants and I'd like to split these hives early enough to avoid a May that is all about swarms. If it doesn't work? Well, I'm not completely committed to this hobby any longer.

 

Easy to see their reptile links. Eggs are beginning to trickle in, and I do mean trickle. We may have to Have Words soon.

The Anna apple is always first to break bud.

Allowing parseley to go to seed turns out to be the easiest way to guarantee loads of fresh parseley, although not succession planting necessarily.

Last year's gone to seed area -- actually, I think I took seed heads and hit the ground here. Sort of a mythical kind of sowing: "Strike the ground with the magic seed head. . ."

Beginning Again

The wagon which is blogging is easy to fall from.

When my inner life becomes more complicated, some things go away faster. Things such as gardening, knitting, baking. . . they're just gone.

Fortunately, not all of the garden knows this.

I finally clipped off the second, brought-to-you-by-global-warming frond growth,which is the juicy-looking green stubble, only to find this spring's crop coming up. If I harvest responsibly, we should get about eight spears of edible size before needing to let the crowns grow and replenish.

Since I have finally found a modicum of knitting mojo (two presents done, a new sweater 20% finished), and spent some time spinning last week, and got a few seeds put out under bird cover, there's hope for the garden yet.

And if there's hope for the garden, can the gardener be far behind?

Strawberry Fields Forever

 That bed of Tristars? I had hoped to gently clip off runners to populate another bed (who doesn't want double the strawberries?) and I kept waiting for runners.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Nope, no runners. And yet, that bed. . . it was looking kind of, kind of. . . dense. (Sorry about the crappy picture -- using a phone).

What is going on underground? A lift with a digging fork revealed --- aiiieeee! It's the Great Lumping Mass. These plants have multiplied. When I began, each berry plant was a teensy slip of a thing.

If I shake enough dirt off of the mass of clumpiness, it's easier to divide the soon-to-be separate strawberry plants. Notice those berries? This variety is still pumping out flowers and berries, some of them quite large. Unfortunately, they taste like watered-down strawberry jell-o, so no joy there. I still give them points for trying.

It didn't take long to fill up another bed, on a three/two pattern. Then I looked back at the original bed, and between a third and a half of it was still very thick with berry plants.

So I eyed another bed in the garden. Dig, lift, shake, separate, and it, too, will hopefully produce luscious berries in the spring. Alas, however, there were many, many, many more berries left to go. I got into a rhythm, flinging separated berries into a cardboard box until the bed was nearly all thinned and I was tired.

And then I turned to the local gardening lists and found homes for all of them. Go forth and grow, little berries! I even had enough left in the bed to provide a friend with berry plants days later.

Someone is going to get a strawberry cream cake for her birthday next year!