Last Day of March

This thermometer is on the south side of my house.


Above the garden of earthly delights-- indoors...

... and that's garlic growing through the snow.



A beautifully-formed Seckl pear.



A Lapin sweet cherry I am torturing into an espalier. The guide strings are attached to a couple bricks. Twice a year I review, prune, and adjust my guides and bricks. This will be the third year in the ground for this cherry. I am anticipating getting a couple pounds of cherries this year. I had about a dozen cherries last year. I surely do not want a 30' tall sweet cherry in my yard, so, "it's my way or the compost, Mr. Lapin!"


Those are the grapes I need to prune. I cut away a lot of the vine in the fall to prevent the over-wintering of insects and pathogens. It also allows me a better view on what I need to prune in the spring and saves the plant's spring energy reserves, while still allowing some of the mass of the plant to provide winter protection. I grow these grapes on wire strung between two posts placed eight feet apart. The posts are four feet tall.


My handsome dwarf Honeycrisp apple tree.

Today is the last day of March. I've lived in a couple different zones. Some places I have not only raked my lawn, but mowed it as well, once more than a couple times! I almost always have it raked here in zone 4. Not this year, though! Although I am starting to see brown grass peek out from underneath the snow, and my female boxer has taken an inordinate interest in the male dogs in the neighborhood (a sure harbinger of spring around this house!), spring is not here.

The sun is shining, though, today! Applause!

This weekend we are forecast to return to sleet and snow.

Typically, my apricot is blooming in about 20 days. That is hard to conceive!

It is still difficult to get out in the yard. Any sort of clean-up of storm-damaged, rabbit and mouse gnawed shrubs has to wait. I have hydrangea with swelling buds that I can not cut back because I really have no where to go with the clippings. Generally, the village begins picking up yard waste on the first Monday in April-- four days from today!

We are behind. When spring finally arrives, I am afraid we will be leaf-frogging into summer in the blink of an eye.

Transplants and Berries

One of the ideas in the garden this year is to develop perennial berry patches. My brother is actually going to build raised bed enclosures for blueberries, blackberries, and hazelnuts. The east side of the enclosures I figure will be an excellent place to grow spring peas and then later tie up the tomatoes and some Asian yard-long pole beans.

My brother is also going to build a number of raised beds. The raised beds are going to grow the salad bowl veggies and herbs. These beds are going to be the source of the very intensive garden and hopefully the only spots we will be intensively weeding as well.

My plan is to plant into thin black landscaping fabric tomatoes, zuchinni, squash, melons,and peppers. The garden is going to be laid out so that it can be cultivated with a tractor for the crops of which we will be growing significant amounts of potatoes, corn, cukes, carrots, and parsnips.

The perennial part of the garden is clustered on one side. There will be a Mount Royal plum, rhubarb, June-bearing and ever-bearing strawberry beds, July-bearing and fall-bearing raspberries, blackberies, hazelnuts, Northland and Blueray blueberries, Frontenac and Reliance grapes. I have a Lapin cherry, Honeycrisp apple, and Moorpark apricot in my own yard. My brother has a very old apple orchard he has been attempting to renovate. This is why I will not be spending a lot of time on the orchard part of our "Food Security Plan".

In the herb bed we will have chives, garlic chives, parsley, thyme, oregano, tarragon. I really like dill and the seed and vegetable producing Florence fennel. I already have chives to be moved into the garden, I have Italian flat-leaved parsley and Florence fennel starts growing in my grow light set up.

Transplants! I have Cayenne peppers and sweet red Carmen peppers. Tomatoes: Olpalka, Sweet 100, Super Beefsteak, Roma, Siberian, and Bloody Butcher. I really like Chocolate Cherry tomatoes and as they are an heirloom, I save seed each year. This year, I have not yet found my seed from last year, so I am a little worried I am not going to get those started this year.

I have spinach. I figure I could start them in the garden, but I can start haarvesting earlier if I have some starts. I also have the pointed Wakefield cabbage, Swiss Chard Primo Rossa. I will direct sow the Bright Lights variety. Also I have kale, savoy-type cabbages, Calabrese broccoli, and golden tomatillos.