This time last week we got four inches of wet snow, but today was shirtsleeve weather, so I pulled the sodden remnants of autumn’s oak-leaf mulch off the “display” raised bed in our south-facing front yard. Four of the six miniature roses have leaf buds, the daylily crowns are sending out green shoots, and the unstoppable Siberian iris fans are nearly a foot tall (no flower buds yet, though). Ripped out whole mounds of invasive catmint, but there’s still plenty for when the bumblees first emerge (I hope). The daffodils closest to the house, whose first flowers got crushed by the snow, don’t look like they’re coming back this year, but the ones by the chimney on the east side are starting to blossom. Best of all, it looks like the lilacs made it through okay — lots of fat pistachio-sized buds, some of them already showing miniscule developing purple florets. One reason I’ll never live below the Mason-Dixon line is that giving up lilacs would ruin Spring for me.
The nice weather almost made me wish I’d reserved this year’s tomato plants (36 varieties, mostly heirlooms, from 2 different sources) to arrive during the first half of May instead of the later weeks. (Of course, if I had, there’d be snow on Mother’s Day.) Since I couldn’t find any Isis Candy plants for sale, I bought a packet of seeds, and I’m going to try direct-seeding them in the sunniest planter and experimenting with the red plastic sheeting left over from last year.
Also thinking about getting a waist-high wheeled planter to grow mesclun. I have no faith in my ability to tell edible greens from the wide variety of ferociously invasive weeds here, but maybe elevation and the judicious use of row cover would help…
What’s your garden look like, right now?
Corner Stone
You’re always wondering what I’m up to. It’s kinda skeevin me out.
FurloughedFed
What’s my garden look like? Like a royal PITA come Monday. F***ing chore list.
SiubhanDuinne
You should send the catnip mint to Tunch. He’d enjoy the high.
As for living south of the M-D: I’m just gonna say Bradford Pears. And Dogwood. There’s a lot I don’t like about this part of the world but Spring isn’t one of them.
jnfr
I have grass totally invading one of my yarrow plants (Moonshine) and another (Terra Cotta) waiting in an Earthbox for me to get its bed ready. Plus the Russian Sage has totally overwhelmed the more deliate penstamon in my herb bed out back. I have tons of digging to do.
Mike in NC
Planted ten new shrubs last weekend when we finally got some decent weather to work outdoors. Still assessing the damage done by ice/frost to some of our small palm trees. They probably won’t bounce back. Soil quality in our development is really terrible: mostly a mix of sand and clay, with a very thin layer of topsoil. After several plants withered I had to put down a lot of garden soil around the foundation of the house to make sure the replacements would thrive. Lots of deer in the area make choosing what to plant complicated and precludes growing vegetables. Yard work can be a full time job, unlike living in a townhouse outside of DC where lawn maintenance was a piece of cake.
Anne Laurie
@Corner Stone:
Effin’ ‘readership capture’ — how does that work?
Poopyman
Our garden looks like crap because I’ve procrastinated replacing the rotten two–by’s that make up the raised beds. They’ve been stacked right there next to the garden, too. Real 2X8s from the Amish sawmill. Four bits a board foot.
And is there anything that would kill all these stinkbugs short of a nuclear meltdown?
TaMara (BHF)
Took a much needed mental health day from work today. The bradford pears have popped and a few trees are leafing out. That must mean a blizzard isn’t far behind. Spent the morning at the Botanic Gardens, see what up there, since it was too wet to garden today. Then visited a friend’s beautiful new shade/rock/grass garden. He’s done an amazing job, puts the rest of us to shame. Planted up a container of violas because I couldn’t wait any longer for some color. Won’t even think of a tomato until after Mother’s Day. I’ve seen frost in June in Colorado.
Kristine
Started the bell peppers and tomatoes in the seed tray last weekend. Outside, the Unsinkable Chive had 4″ shoots popping through the dead vegetation. I wish that stuff I liked grew like that.
The two mini roses near the back door have leaves and leaf buds. Daffs are about 3-4 inches high. It’s been unseasonably cold here in northeastern IL–we’re 3-4 weeks behind where we were last year at this time. I bought a colder weather tomato variety–Siberian–just in case the coolness sticks around.
I’ll plant the mesclun seeds next weekend. Not sure when I’ll plant the basil seeds in the deck planter.
Comrade Mary
Out front: mud, my neighbours’ litter, some spunky evergreens, and a few green leaves from the tulips.
Out back: mud, greenish grass, mud, crop circles, mud, yellowish grass, mud, some spunky strawberry plants from last summer showing green leaves, mud, my denuded and carnivorous raspberry-trifid hybrid, mud, and a few tomato plants I didn’t yank out from the recycling bins late year.
Also: mud.
So what do I win?
Corner Stone
@Anne Laurie: Doesn’t it make you wonder?
jeffreyw
Over the last two weeks we have doubled the size of last year’s garden. The soil in the original plot was pretty good after years of tilling in mulch and peat moss so we had to hustle to amend the clay in the new part. Tilled in a good load of composted manure a neighbor donated last fall, and another load I bought, along with a goodly amount of composted wood chip mulch. Also dumped in some bagged “topsoil” from one of the big box stores, and just today added a ton of Mississippi bottoms topsoil and tilled that in. We have the entire garden mulched in with wood chips and it awaits planting. Tomorrow we will put in some broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage sprouts, and we will poke in a bunch of onion sets. We have corn and bean seeds to plant in there somewhere. Oh, and lettuce seeds.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
My garden looks like two 4×4 boxes made of 2x8s with mostly composted compost on one and lawn clippings on the other.
Best part, though, my garden has onions growing, sprouting from something left in the ground last year. How cool is that?
But now I have to plan the whole square foot planting thing around them. Damned onions! Selfish onions!!
Cam
@Comrade Mary: You must live in my neighborhood. Our four seasons are Summer, Fall, Winter and Mud.
Stan of the Sawgrass
I’m in South Florida, across Biscayne Bay from Miami Beach– the village of Miami Shores. Yes, it’s already pretty warm down here, and no, I’m not trying to rub your faces in it. I don’t know why, exactly, but my neighborhood is a paradise for various funguses, which have attacked my tomatoes, green peppers, and other normal garden-type vegetables every time I’ve tried to grow them. I planted some Chinese goat’s horn peppers that shot up like skyrockets– great looking and robust– before they came down with god-knows-what that covered them with powdery white spume and killed them within a day or two. The green peas are doing great, though. Wish I could train the vines to stay on the strings I put up, but they have a mind of their own.
Really, though, I’m proud of my pineapples! The plants take a couple of years to fruit, and I’ve finally gotten a decent crop– eight of ’em. They’re tiny, and just done blooming: you know all those bumps on the outside of a ripe pineapple? When they’re babies, each little bump has a tiny little purple blossom that lasts about a week. I didn’t know this until I started growing them. They take about six months to mature, and mine are small, about the size of a double fist, if you have big hands. But I can let these little guys ripen in the sun, and the difference between them and a commercial, green-picked pineapple is astounding. They’re incredibly sweet, not acidic, and have a mellow aroma that Dole can only dream of.
If anyone wants to give it a try, you grow a plant by twisting the green top off
a pineapple, let it dry for a day or so, and then stick it into the ground. Full sun. Takes about two years to fruit. I don’t know exactly how they might do in YOUR neighborhood, but I saw one in my old Chicago neighborhood, and it was fruiting!
Steeplejack
I find myself actually interested in a Washington Nationals game. Go figure. They were locked in an extra-innings tie with the Marlins and just went up 5-3 in the top of the 11th. I’ve got it on in the background as I doink around on the Intertubes.
Worked a rare midshift today (off at 7:15) and have to go back early tomorrow morning, so I am chillaxin’ and (I hope) heading toward a relatively early bedtime, maybe around midnight.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
And the Nats win to avoid the sweep. And they collect their second win of the young season. Yee-haw.
waldenpond
The daffodils are done but I have plenty of tulips, grape hyacinth and forget-me-knots. The roses, clematis and brand new apple trees are budding. We tore out a pine tree that overgrew it’s area and I cut the blossoms off the blueberries that I put in it’s place. I hoed out a larger area under the Aspen tree and we made a copper tri-fold frame to twine the peas and beans on. I planted an additional 36 strawberry plants in the rose bed.
For this years project, I tore out the small 28 x 16 front lawn last November. Crept out in breaks in the rain and have the posts and rails in and have put in a perimeter bed and 4 4×8 beds inside. Have the majority of step stones and bricks dug in. I’ve managed to get iris, bluebells, lily, bachelor buttons, larkspur, sunflower, allium, stock and a couple of dahlias in the perimeter bed and have lettuce, kale and spinach in one bed and broccoli, brussel sprouts and perennial celery in the other bed.
Picked up a small tower for seeds and have leeks, fennel, oregano, squashes, spinach, peas, sheep’s bit and oriental poppies coming on.
Apikoros
Annie, I don’t want to disappoint you too badly, but my Lilacs here in Alexandria, VA, are doing just fine a good 75 miles south of the Mason-Dixon line. Remember that that line runs between Pennsylvania and Maryland. Lilacs don’t exactly thrive here, and they appreciate an occasional dusting with sulfur, but they are hardy souls and reward me with a lovely display every year. Part of what I love about DC is that it is very much a border area. We can have Lilacs and Camellias, both! And Pomegranates and even some of the hardier citrus (Kumquats, I am told, tho I have not tried them). My Bay Laurel is out of control and the Arp Rosemary pulled through just fine… blooming like crazy! I appear to have lost my Sage, alas. The fig has yet to show a sign of life but it’s a late starter and will come back from the root even if the top dies. I am very guilty of the crime of failing to start my tomatos, but I hope to make amends this week… Cherokee Purples!!! Yes!!!
jharp
My tallest tomato plant is 18 inches. Most are 9 inches.
My best peppers are 8 inches tall but most are only 2 or 3.
I had a casualty in the basil section today but the others are hanging tough.
I am in central Indiana and still one month from planting outdoors.
And my rosemary and thyme that I moved inside for the winter are looking good. I am getting them accustomed to the outside which ain’t far away.
Janet Strange
Well, Texas here, so garden is going nuts already. Fall planting of chard is, as usual for Spring, producing like mad. Have eaten a ton and given away several more tons. Other Fall stuff is near or at harvesting. Carrots, parsnips, leeks, shallots, beets, onions, kohlrabi. Those things won’t take the heat, so they’ll be all over with soon.
Spring planting of beans and cucumbers starting to climb. Tomatoes have baby tomatoes on them and are about thigh high. Question: My tomatoes get taller than me and about four or five feet in diameter before they’re done. I can’t imagine having room for 36 tomato plants! Do tomatoes not get so big up North, or do you have about an acre to grow them in?
jharp
I’ve also got the wildflowers bursting out in my woods.
If anyone cares get the leaves off of the forest floor and the flowers do way way better.
Several types of trillium, dutchmans breeches, spring beauties, toothwort, bloodroot, and 3 others that I can’t name (1 blue, two purple).
Cool stuff. It looks very nice.
jo6pac
Central valley in calif. bells, tomatos, onions, Dan Q food, rosemary, melons, beets, radishs are in. Fava beans are about a month away from harvest and hope this the last cold spell for here, ya it will be 37 to nite. Yep hollyhocks are coming out of the ground as are other flowers. Royal Sunset roses are starting to bloom and planted 4 each apircot, cherry, plum trees this yr. I hope to raise what I eat to about 60% from the garden.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
There is a snake in my garden.
And I want that motherfucking snake out of my motherfucking garden right motherfucking now.
.
.
demz taters
I started from seed for the first time this year. The only things thriving are the garlic that sprung up in the compost heap and, of course, the catnip. All I’ve got to say is if the apocalypse was nigh and I only had my Glenn Beck Crisis Garden™ to rely on, I’d be truly fucked.
cckids
Here in southern NV, we had epic winds today that blew around all kinds of crap, but thankfully didn’t do too much damage to my new plants. I’m ridiculusly proud of myself for finally getting rid of what my kids charmingly called “the shit pit”; an 8′ x 30′ side “yard” on the east side of the house that was covered about 4 inches deep in sand. As the name indicates, this meant that to my cats, as well as all neighborhood felines, it was a super-convenient al fresco litter box. We’ve been renting here for a year, so had somewhat less motivation to get rid of it than if we owned the place, but the smell & threat of disease got to me. So now I have an 8′ by 30′ rock/desert garden. Oleanders, aloe, butterfly iris, various cacti, lots of decorative rock, and my teens are making some outdoor art for me. It will win no design prizes, but we did the monumental amount of work ourselves & it is SO much better than it was. Tomorrow, planting honeysuckle & tomatoes.
Anne Laurie
@Janet Strange:
To be honest, I don’t either. All my tomato plants go into pots, staked to climb upwards, and I always buy too many (because I’m ordering in February, a New England February) so they’re too crowded to be as productive as they could be. Not very cost or resource-effective, frankly, but at least we get enough tasty tomatoes to keep us eating from July through October, and enough variety we’re never bored…
catdevotee
Southern coastal Oregon here. We still are harvesting carrots, onions, and herbs like chives from last year. We only had one frost this winter, but we are having hail storms which are beating up the seedling peas and so forth.
In the greenhouse (thank the gods for the greenhouse!) we have flats started of spinach, lettuces of various sorts, squash, peppers, and tomatoes. Also replacement chard, bok choi, and onions.
The daffodils began blooming at least a month ago, and the late-season varieties are blooming now. The rhodies bloom year-round but the big season is coming up.
TheMightyTrowel
Here in the UK we’re in the midst of a glorious spring. My irises are sending up flower shoots a month early, my garlics are enormous and my herb bed is flourishing. The Lemonbalm and thyme are particularly happy – and the lemon thyme we put in 2 weeks ago has already doubled in size. Most exciting is that the new rhubarb I just planted last summer has got 4 stalks up – I can’t eat it this year, but it’s nice to see it doing well.
The experiments this year are hops (which don’t look to happy), tomatoes (they’re still sprouting from seeds) since we finally found a warm enough sun trap that they might possibly one day flower and marjoram.
I have a greeny-yellow sage that is not very happy, but hopefully the sun and some love and compost will perk it up and in a few weeks we’re going to plant a verbena so i can have my favourite herbal tea all year round.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Comrade Mary: My admiration. Your garden sounds a lot like mine, and we are just starting ours as if there never was a garden here because there really never was. Bought this place in Woodinville WA in August, it’s had a house on the 7/8ths of an acre for 15 years, and we are just finding out what we own as far as plantlife. We planted lots of tulips and daffodils and crocuses last fall, but there are lots more that have come up everywhere on the property.
The daffodils and hyacinths are in bloom, the tulips haven’t opened yet, and there is mud everywhere. We planted two pear trees last month and they are just about to bloom.
It snowed for an hour yesterday, just for fun. Wasn’t cold enough to stick but it was better entertainment than the hailstorm and the lightning that dang-near hit our house before the snow came.
We have been promised sunshine and a high of 57 tomorrow so we get to plant two apple trees and a couple of rose bushes, maybe set out a bunch of anemones and liatris that I have in the fridge. There are larkspur and grape hyacinth coming up in some garden beds and oriental poppies in others. There are a dozen peonies out by the front gate that are returning after the winter. I have no idea what color they are. There are hedges of lavender in the rear garden that are just starting to look like they’re alive, but no signs of life from the clematis on the shed yet. I hope it comes back. Looks like we lost all of the roses that were on the property, which is kind of strange because roses are not that tender and it wasn’t that cold this winter. Under the mulberry at the back corner of the yard, there is a garden of blue hyacinth that is just amazing right now. All that green grass and moss and then that intense blue.
The lawn needs mowing because it has been too wet and boggy to mow it for two weeks, and just warm enough that it grew like mad.
We have some weeds that need pulling, too, so maybe we can take turns on the mower.
My husband put in two raised beds for me but it’s still a little too cold to sow seeds in them. More raised beds to come.
Up and down the road there are cherry trees and some sort of small white magnolia in exuberant bloom. Flowering pears, plums, everything is starting to bloom here. If only we could get a few days in a row of sun we could get everything under control and make some headway on building the garden. If only.
It’s slushy and muddy but when I look out the window it’s beautiful.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Steeplejack: I know exactly how you feel. It’s spring, when’s the game on? (Angels fan. :-)
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@jo6pac: We had a Royal Sunset on the arbor at our place in Anaheim. It shared space with a ginormous, very happy Sally Holmes, as well as a white wisteria. I miss that garden; I hope the new owners are taking care of it. It was hard to leave.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: Scaredy cat.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@catdevotee: We have possibly the only property in Washington without any rhodies. Or fruit trees, for that matter.
Anne Laurie
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland:
Don’t give up yet; here in New England we’ve had roses die down to ground-level and re-sprout as late as Memorial Day. Of course if your roses aren’t own-root, you’ll end up with a bunch of ugly magenta ‘volunteers’ that you may want to get rid of anyways, but if you’re not sure what they are, you may want to give them a few more weeks to recover.
JR
We have about 10,000 daffydills along a 1/4 mile driveway bank, and they’ve been out for 3 weeks, still going strong.
Being in SW West Virginia, we’re maybe 200 miles south of the Mason-Dixon line, but lilacs are doing OK. Our’s is a little leggy, tall, tall, but that’s because it doesn’t get enuff sun, ’cause of the trees.
Hyacinths doing OK, Trilliums popping out, won’t boom for another week or two. Dogtooth violets up in profusion, we’ll get a couple of blooms in another week.
Monster thunderstorm early in the week left a 60 foot tall oak horizontal in the back of the house, from left bank where it’s broken off its stump to the right bank where the tree top is held up by another oak it’s caught against.
Being 30 feet off the ground in the middle I don’t have a clue how I’m gonna get the sucker out of there. At least it’s right over the woodshed!
JR
mac
Clarke County Virginia here. Our garden is a muddy mess. We’ve turned the soil but haven’t tilled. My parsley came back from last year. I hope the dill seeds itself. I really want some cucumber salad…and a gin and tonic. Cheers!
ET
I got a new garden planted last year and because it was so new I was worried about winter. But everything is coming in and it is starting to look fantastic. My favorite is the flox.
tess
Picked up the first of this year’s plants last night at the co-op–just a few herbs and some arugula. Will need to replace much of the soil in the raised beds because we have caught at least one neighbor cat scratching around in it, but I have some of those plastic spikey things you can put down to dissuade cats from using mulched beds for less than hygienic food-growing purposes. But it’s supposed to be in the mid-80s tomorrow here in northern Georgia, so this may be a project for next.
Michele Quarton
Ventured out last week and began raking out leaf mulch from around my beds. We have had a cool spring in Southeast Penn.
To my surprise the hostas were poking through, bleeding hearts are up, hydrangea are beginning to sprout buds. Best of all the Robins are back. The temperatures can yo-yo, but all the signs of spring have arrived. Now,I have to put the deer netting up and hope all the spring early arrivals mature.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Anne Laurie: Thanks for the encouragement. This property is just East of Seattle, 4 miles north of Redmond so the winter was not all that cold.
Most of the roses were ugly runty orange floribundas so if they’re gone I won’t mind too much. They were planted in the wrong place so we won’t have to transplant them , and we won’t have to feel guilty if they died.
mr opiejeanne is a Consulting Rosarian with the American Rose Society (we stopped paying membership more than 25 years ago), so we know about the issue of rootstocks. :-) He’s made me do a bit of grafting for him because my fingers are smaller and he can’t do as neat a job. I’m 61 now so I may not be able to do as neat a job these days.
The one I’m really sorry about if it’s dead is a climber. I’m not sure what it is because we bought the place in August and the only blooms we saw were dropping off. It looked like a huge old pink rose, like Belle of Portugal, but the property is only 15 years old and I doubt that the previous owner would have tracked down one of those. It might have been someone else’s discard, though and she was all about cheap and free stuff.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@JR: Oooh! Pictures of the daffydills?