it is mid-april and spring has shown some of the "vernal tendencies" that so annoyed de quincey...there are five varieties of wheat up aand running pout in the back...
and the thoroughly unexpected sprouts are doing okay...
the strawberries imported from new york are all evincing new growth...
while the ramps in the leaf litter on the north side of the house are happily believing they are still in the woods...all the cold hardy varieties are perfectly at home...and that's the point...
april may be the "cruelest month" but still, in what was a normal year in the past, temperatures had usually moderated to a degree ( or two ) by now and this season they really have not...it has been a cold spring...
and, of late, it has turned wet...it has been raining ( there is standing water in my yard...which isn't that unusual...except for the fact that we have a very sandy sub-soil and water tends to drain away very quickly...usually...there has been a lot of rain )for better than twenty-four hours now and it seems determined to continue...
at least that is what the earthworms ( always a welcome sight ) that it is driving tot he surface all over the yard are telling me..so the cold hardy, from the asparagus in the community garden tot he sprouts out back, are well at home in april...but i am wondering just how long this will go on...it won't matter for the annuals like tomatoes or peppers that i plan to transplant whenever it is suitable...and the maize probably will be alright ( the squirrels are going to eat it anyway )...there are those things i plant to grow from direct sown seed though...like sweet clover and teosinte...that will have to wait until it warms...and the cold sensitive tubers like mashua and yacon that have long seasons...and the teosinte for that matter...its season seems to go on for ever...all of which may have truncated seasons if this doesn't change soon...true it is only mid-april...but, from another standpoint, it is already mid-april and there are many of us who are weary of being cooped up in the basement...time to get outside.
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