mother's day out back

with seventeen trees in my back yard and five in the front areas of full sun are at a premium and confined to the south side of the yard and house...since part of that is a driveway i have taken to growing what needs full sun in containers...

so i purchased a couple of twenty gallon totes, which were cheap since they did not have lids...shipping and/or ordering error one supposes...drilled drainage holes in the bottoms and covered them with a thin layer of garden soil...

i had cut some red nordland seed potatoes yesterday to allow them to callous...i put them in one container and covered them with more garden soil...

i did the same with some russian banana fingerling potatoes which i did not cut and callous...

and i gave them a shot of water with marigold's help...i will move them into the sun and as they break surface bury them again until they reach the top of the containers...and we will see how well this works ( or not )...

elsewhere around the yard, mason bees are just waking up and getting to work...so far they have filled seventy-five tbes in two bee houses with larvae...the next generation is well under way...

the asparagus continues to produce new spears which i am harvesting although i have left a few to "fern" early to feed the roots...

the ramps on the north side of the house are doing well...hoping for bunching and for flowers both...

the mooseberry bush ( aka high bush cranberry for those of you berift of the bullwinkle j. mooose reference ) is blooming...

the strawberries are blooming as well and beginning to bear fruit...

a dense stand of jerusalem artichokes in one corner of a bed will need close monitoring or they will take over...

the first chinese yam vine of the year has popped up...there will be more...another colonizer...

and, finally, the potato that had been under the lights in the basement has been outside for going on a week...it has clearly shocked and is expressing its ambivalence about the environment it finds itself in...i can relate...more as it comes up.

the jerusalem artichokes are unquiet

over that past ten years or so the jerusalem artichokes have broken soil surface in the first few weeks of may...this particular specimen was up at the perennial garden project at iun on the twenty-first of march 2012...that was an exceptionally anomolous month in terms of weather with consistent warm temperatures, at times reaching into the eighties ( fahrenheit ) and was followed by a seasonable april and a summer long drought which did not do this plant much good at all...up early and starved for water...at least in terms of rain...and the heat radiating of the nearby ( within ten feet ) walls of hawthorn hall didn't help much either...in 2013 the sunchokes were back on their usual schedule of appearing in may...

out this morning rooting around with marigold...

i discovered that, in the past week, not only have the tubers continued to root...

the have clearly begun to sprout...perhaps a sign that the inordinately warm winter wil have them making an early breakthrough...there are still a little better than thirty-two days until may and they were not usually up on the first...we will see what happens in april.

last third of march and the second full day of spring

we've already discussed that the daffodils are significantly early and that the asparaagus is on schedule...

there was a dusting of snow this morning and although it has warmed this afternoon, temperatures will be below freezing at night over the next few days...

so the mooseberry bush has stalled...

i did not see a fully opened russian olive blooms until april seventh last year...these began opening yesterday so that leaves us seventeen days earlier this year...

marigold and i were rooting around in the jerusalem artichoke bed and we found...

well..roots...this one had sprouted them in three places...

and this ...

had just the one...

these have been breaking soil surface in the first week of may and rooting in march may simply be part of that timeline...the only way to tell is to keep an eye on them and see what pops up and when...so far it is about a fifty/fifty split between on time and early...we will see how that holds.

what's up

not all that much actually...however there are some notes of interest...

it has been unnaturally warm ( or the new naturally warm ) so far this year and, while my thermometer doesn't show a record breaking temeprature ( seventy-seven degrees fahrenheit ) it is considerably above the average ( i know, averages lie ) of forty-six...what impact this has had i am uncertain...temperature or day length?

the daffodils are in full bloom signifcantly earlier than last season's march thirtieth...

the strawberries are evincing new growth...however thay have been green all winter...

last year the mooseberry bush (high bush cranberry for those of you who did not grow up with rocky and bullwinkle ) was not this far along until the fifth of april...

jerusalem artichokes usually come up in early may...this one looks like it is satrting to produce a root and i will be keeping an eye on it to see what transpires and when...

finally, there was no asparagus up in this bed when i checked two days ago, however there is today...and this is on schedule...so..a mash-up of early, on time, and uncertain start times...we'll see.