cold hardy

it was cold enough to snow this morning so winter paid a visit to early spring just to say hello...

fortunately the asparagus...

the ramps...

the egyptian walking onions...

plus the russian olives are all cold hardy...the impact will be minimal...

and the rye and wheat aren't called "winter" for no reason...this is why none of the spuds from downstairs have migrated outside just yet...the end of the moth seems more likely for them...the rest of the seeds will go in mid-may..by then we should be clear of events like this...patience would seem a virtue here.

thirty degree ( fahrenheit ) drop

something approaching a half inch of rain in the past two days...

and a thirty degree drop in temperature from yesterday's sunny seventy hasn't had that much of an impact out back...

i did take advantage of the weather yesterday to turn some beds to disrupt the creeping charlie...today seems like a less auspicious garden work day...

the cold hardy out there don't seem to mind however...the winter rye is about a foot tall and the winter wheat is not trailing by very much...very green and at home in the temperatures...

there are forty-one ramps up in various stages of development...

pleasingly the younger asparagus has evaded the rabbits that visit in increasing numbers...

even more pleasingly the elder of the asparagus plants has finally decided to put in an appearance...

while the clusters of blooms on the russian olives are providing the mason bees with somewhere to work this early in spring...the season is coming along and, seemingly, will be confined to the back yard...another summer of working on becoming a native there.

april showers

over the past two days my back yard has been pummeled with two inches of rain and last night it was bludgeoned with hail as well...fortunately with very little damage...mostly because it is early in the season yet...

things are moving along in the ramp bed...i count thirty-six up...they are coming into leaf and i am hoping for a robust florescence later this season...if that works out there wil be a scattering of seed...

the winter wheat is looking healthy...

and the winter rye has already topped six inches in height...

the black tip and emmer wheat i planted on, i believe, the twenty-fifth of march have finally put in an appearance...

while there is asparagus coming along among the strawberries, the eldest of my plants has remained inert which is disturbing...gardening teaches loss but this one would be unfortunate since it is asparagus grown from seed that originated in the perennial garden project almost a decade ago...the ones up and running are also in a direct line of descent from the pgp so it is not a complete disaster...perhaps there will be "berries" in the yard this year and there can be a further planting...

i found this mass growing in a crack in the patio where i was removing wheat and rye ears from the stalks last summer...my suspicion, having run across this sort of thing before, is that it is one of the two...you may remember puddles, the wheat that germinated in the basement...

she grew in the basement under the lights and then resurrected outside in the april sunlight to go on and reproduce...her container is still out there and, suspecting this may be another cereal grass, i replanted it there...we will be seeing what transpires as the season goes on.

april movement

as the photos from the third showed the mason bees are hatching out of the bee house...

it rained yesterday so no bees flew and it is a bit too cold fro them to fly today...that doesn't mean things are at a standstill out back...

there is asparagus up...on its own and cohabiting with the wild strawberries from new york...

the winter rye...

and winter wheat are growing and working on filling in the beds...

none of the spring wheat i planted twelve days ago has deigned sprout...it is a bit late, however i planted some dwarf syrian just to see what happens...it would be nice to have some sort of spring wheat this season...

i count no less than forty-four egyptian walking onions around the yard...

and equally encouraging, there are now twenty-five ramps up...next up will be spud planting...the jerusalem artichokes will be up next month with no encouragement necessary..and then we will get into the squash, beans, and zea family...and somewhere in there the leaf cutters will arrive...the calendar is filling in.