The Middle of May

“If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things in nature have a message you understand, Rejoice, for your soul is alive.”

                                                                                                                      -- Eleanora Duse

At the end of the day...

 "In Spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." -Margaret Atwood.

This has been a cold late spring. I was looking back over my blog posts from last April. Wild violets were blooming April 20th. Tulips were blooming April 19th. Plum trees were blooming April  13th. I took a photo of a spider web on April 6th.  The first daffodil bloomed April 1st.

This year? No tulips yet. The plum trees haven't even begin to think of blooming. I haven't seen a single spider, let alone a spider web. The first daffodil bloomed about a week ago. I've consistently had to wear a winter coat to work all through April. A walk through my woods today revealed the green nubs of may apples starting to emerge and the first red- brown fuzzy leaves of wild geraniums, but no woodland flowers or even flower buds to be seen.

The seeds I planted on March 17th are all sprouting though.  (minus the peas--I saw only one lone pea sprout today). I think that March 17th has been the only really warm day we've had so far this Spring--and that technically wasn't even Spring!

Today was about 50 degrees and sunny--and I had a day off, so I took advantage of the weather and worked in the garden all day.

                          
 

We plowed up new ground for those crops that take a lot of space--pumpkins, corn, and beans.

I planted 36 hills of potatoes--Red Norland, Pontiac Red, and Irish Cobbler. I have 5 pounds of Yukon Gold to plant. Terry wants me to plant some Burbank Russets--I will have to look for seed potatoes for them.

 Many of the seeds I started a few weeks ago will be ready soon for planting out in the garden.

The black austrolourp chicks got a chance to run around outside today. It has been so cold, I've kept them cooped up all the time. They didn't know what to do with themselves with so much space.

My flock of adult hens (which is down to four as of a few weeks ago) is loving the sunshine, and followed me around in the garden for most of day eating all the earthworms.

And there are a few flowers blooming:

Daffodils of course--

Maple tree--

Glory of the snow--

 

Scilla Siberica--



Small collection of gardening quotes...

(One of the gardens I left behind when we moved last summer.)

"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt."

"Gardening is a kind of disease. It infects you, you cannot escape it. When you go visiting, your eyes rove about the garden; you interrupt the serious cocktail drinking because of an irresistible impulse to get up and pull a weed." (Oh, so true--maybe not cocktail drinking for me, but where ever I go I have to resist the urge to pull weeds out of flower beds.)

"God loved the flowers and invented soil. Man loved the flowers and invented vases."

"True gardeners cannot bear a glove Between the sure touch and the tender root.".

"At the heart of gardening there is a belief in the miraculous."

"It is utterly forbidden to be half-hearted about gardening. You have got to love your garden whether you like it or not."

Eternal hope

"Gardening is, by its very nature, an expression of the triumph of optimism over experience. No matter how bad this year was there is always next year. Experience doesn't count. Just because the carrots have been knobby, misshapen, and somewhat bitter four years in a row doesn't mean that they are going to be knobby and misshapen next year. No, sir, next year you will (1)work in twice as much compost and peat; (2) plant a new improved variety: or (3) get lucky. Or even better you can forget carrots and plant something exotic like blue cauliflower. Because each year starts with a clean slate, and because of the phenomenon I call garden amnesia, the garden ensures eternal hope."

William Alexander, quoted from The $64 Tomato