four fifths

it's four fifths of the way through april and the temperature has dropped off from the upper seventies ( fahrenheit ) into the upper sixties which hasn't put much of a damper on things around the yard...

thirty-seven ramps have made an appearance under the critter net on the north side of the house...something ( one? ) was making off with them last season so i covered them to see what would transpire...

the mooseberry bush ( high bush cranberry for those of you who grew up berift of rocky and bullwinkle ) is leafing out nicely and visiting with his daffodil neighbors...

the relentless colonizers known as jerusalem artichokes have popped up...i found them on april twelfth last year so either they or i am running later than last season although in the past they did not appear until early may so it may still be called an early appearnace...

the asparagus is doing well ( remind me to take a jaunt out to campus this weekend to see what is going on there ) and i have already harvested some...

the ever bearing...

and wild strawberries are blooming...and, holding to the pattern, they have been discovered later than last year when the were both out on april twelfth...someone is tardy...difficult to know whom...

and becuse the berries, as well as a host of other spring flowers lincluding the daffodils, tulips, and violets are blooming the bee houses are alive with mason bees working on moving their dna along to a new generation which, to steal a line from old sam pepys, "pleases me mightily"...spuds, maize, and teosinte coming up in may.

mid april

tax day and the asparagus is starting to come up in strength out in the east bed, with expectation of more to come...

this past weekend i noticed some of the ramps had come up through the leaf mulch so today i opened it and weeded...i had some still viable in the bed from a few years ago and i planted more last autumn so i am looking for a good crop this year, hopefully with some bunching so it can become self-sustaining...a few flowers and som seed wouldn't hurt either...

it is a mostly cloudy and cooler day today with the sunn popping out at intervals so the mason bees are a bit more sluggish than they were a few days ago...they're still out there however and the daffodils, russian olives, violets, and dandelions are still out there as well...feeding, collecting pollen balls, mining soil, and nesting continue.

mason bees

it is a sunny saturday here with temperatures near sixty degrees ( fahrenheit )...flowers are blooming and today i have seen spring bees taking advantage of the opportunity to begin moving their dna to a new generation...

they are fast and somewhat skittish...i do believe that simply my presence disturbs them...and having marigold nosing around pondering what one might taste like doesn't help getting a decent photo ( actually marigold is part of the reason there are mason bees around...as the name implies the bees use clayey soil in their nesting process and marigold, being the terrier she is, opens up a trench in the back yard with little real effort providing ample nesting material )...

the bees are certainly interested in the daffodils and i have noticed them on the crocuses as well...spring has arrived in a number of ways...

aside from the blooms they are showing marked interest in the bee houses around the yard as well...there is an ample supply of them for the mason bees and for the leaf cutters i hope to see later in the summer...so there should be some photos of nesting as spring progresses...we will keep an eye out for those.

asparagus et al

asparagus is popping up in the bed in the back yard...a clear sign it was time to head for campus and open the asprargus bed...i actually resigned from the garden at the end of last season, however, since the asparagus is the last remnant of the perennial garden project on campus and, by extension, among the last bits of kathy forgey on campus i volunteered to attend to the asparagus...

so i drove out to campus, opened the bed, ran a weeding hoe across it and dug back a trench along the asparagus row since asparagus is not the strongest of plants in terms of breaking surface and it appreciates some help...i will fill that back in and add more compost as the season goes on to feed the roots...

there was no asparagus to be seen...only the stumps left behind when i cleared the bed last autumn...they will be along soon enough...

happily the alfalfa made it through the winter and is greening up to feed the bees around june or so ...

unhappily, this row of beds were the first constructed eleven years ago and they are basically falling apart...there needs to be a decision about repair or replacement or removal at some point...

back at home this spud i planted at the bottom of a twelve inch deep container under the lights a month ago is now about eight inches above the top and growing...it can move outside next month and we will see what it yields sometime in june or early july...

the teosinte down there is booming along as well...both plants come from seed i found from 2019...still some viability left in it...

both plants have flowered...this one has silks from two ears it is working on...

and this one is focusing on a single ear so far...seeds? we'll see...