Thursday, April 08, 2010

Spring-Summer-Spring-Summer

Back on the rollercoaster rider of a Virginian spring- today in the 80's, tomorrow the 60's, 70's the next day, then back up to the 80's.  I am still a little worried about my seeds- cool weather crops don't like warm weather much.  I really should know this by now!






The peas are really growing now... it's just about time for me to go appropriate their trellis and put it up for them to grow up :)  I am beginning to regret this variety, I should have gone for the more heat tolerant one again.  I do have some of those ready for a autumn crop...

My potatoes and broccoli are really coming along.  I have yet to get the bed set up with the new sides here, but you can see how the broccoli (back row) and potatoes (all the other squares) look.... I am hoping the hot weather is going to dissipate and let them all grow a nice crop of little potatoes :)





I have shown pawpaws on my blog before- this is the annual flower shot :)  The bottom one is newer than the top- and we now have three pawpaw trees in bloom.  I am not happy about the third- it is in a BAD spot!  They are extremely difficult to re-locate though.

The lilacs are already blooming- just stunning.  I love their scent.  And they are such pretty flowers, I am thinking of drawing them :)

Even the roses are getting ready to bloom!  Typically these roses are May or June bloomers, so to have buds in early April is a little early!  But that's the weather for you.

Right now though, everything is coated in a sticky layer of pollen.  There are several culprits, but here are the two main ones in my garden...


White Pine.  The flowers are quite something aren't they?  These are wind pollinated trees, so the stuff is blown hither and yon all around the neighbourhood.  It is truly unfortunate for us that there are two right in our front yard- they are not especially nice trees!

The other culprit is a birch- in this case a paperbark birch.  These 'catkins' are the birch flowers- another wind born pollen bearer!  I am not as upset with this one- because I truly love birches- and the 'paperbark' is fascinating.  Wonder if it makes for a good canvas...

There are signs of my lettuce, beet, chard and onions popping up, and I believe I saw a carrot or two this morning as well.  I also found two 'wild' lettuce and chard plants growing in my beds- volunteers from other years.  I wont complain though, I love these little visitors!  I'll save posting pictures of those until another day :)

2 comments:

Jill said...

I have a river birch like yours too. Did you plant your Paw paws in full sun? I'm planning to put them in partial shade.

Spinneretta said...

One pawpaw is in full sun, the other in partial shade.
Most fruit bearing trees produce more in the sun, but understory trees like the pawpaw will produce fine in the partial shade :) They just like full sun better ;)