Spring is Coming

 

     March 3, 2021.  A glorious day, high of 57.  Snow drops as indications that spring will soon burst upon us.  A forecast of days to come, without rain.  Maybe not as warm as today, but beautiful none the less.  The snow drops are the earliest of my spring bulbs to bloom, easily beating out the crocus and daffodils.

    Snow drops are part of a group of plants known as ephemerals.  They have a short growth season, often in early spring before trees leaf out.  They take full advantage of early spring sun light, then die back to nothing as trees leaf out and block the light.  These snow drops self seed, so the patch gets bigger and bigger for the spring spectacle.  I have crocus, wood hyacinths, and grape hyacinths which are also ephemeral, and should bloom in a couple of weeks.

     

A bit of Paradise

                                                        February 25, 2021

       A bit of Paradise in February.  Still with snow outside.  Cindy and I brought a small Bird of Paradise plant home from a trip to Hawaii in 1986.  It apparently did not mind it's trip back east, as it has thrived and now bloomed for many years.  It starts blooming in December, and continues for months on end.  This year had only two blooms whereas most years there are five.   It loves to spend the summers outside, but only well away from frost dates.

 

Lettuce starts update 1/5/2021

Mixed lettuce from seed 10/17/2020

      The lettuce starts shown above were started from seed on October 17 of 2020, with the intent to

move the small plants to a cold frame to winter over.  This pot was outside and survived a low of 26 

degrees on December 7 th.  By mid December this and a second pot were moved to our single pane enclosed porch.  

      Yesterday on 1/4/2021, I painstakingly moved tiny thick stemmed chinese mustard seedlings that had hair like roots from a wet paper towel start of maybe a week prior wetting.  Pak Choi seeds were also sprinkled over dirt yesterday.  Today I also started six Golden Treasure Pepper seeds on the damp paper towel method.  Pepper seeds take me forever to germinate, and are also slow growers, hence the very early attempted start.