First Flowers

A week ago we were getting our last snow.  I still have some ice around the base of the house, but it was 27 degrees yesterday, and I had my first flower bloom. Predictably it was white, a good bridge between winter and summer.  That's fitting since we seem to have skipped spring, although crocus are usually a spring flower. . . . I was so excited to be out this weekend, and there was so much to see and do.

The girls, Mike and I spent a couple of hours raking all the leaves off beds and pruning dead foliage. I leave it until the danger of a bad frost is gone, usually the third week of April.  You can see the post from April 10th last year to see what my yard looks like this year. We also set up the fountain, cleaned all the desk and patio space and set up all the lawn furniture. I brought the plants out to the greenhouse and Mike fixed the fence.  I had visions of laying in my hammock, but so far I haven't sat down long enough. Anwyn enjoyed it, though.

One of my plagues this year is the mice who moved into the greenhouse.  We've had the problem before, but mostly

in a minor way. This year the winter was a month longer, and the mice decided to eat all plants I was growing in the beds on the ground except for the onions. Apparently they like spinach, lettuce, beet greens and virtually all other greens, but even mice don't want raw onion.  Pip, who usually eats all mice, spent time trapped on the outside of the greenhouse (no cat door) while the mice cavorted inside. As a result, I spent the weekend paving over the places where there were tunnels in and Mike laid edging around the outside. Then we turned the compost and watched the mice try to break in to hide. Our defenses held against the first sortie. Pip chased three around the yard and Merry watched them confused. I was just delighted that I could fill the greenhouse with plants again and proud of Pip until she threw them up on the white carpet in the basement this morning.

Whatever is new is always main excitement in the spring. This year, it is garlic I got from my mother. I had it all labelled and planted, but the massive snow storms and bizarre thaw were destructive here too.  Fortunately, it was to the labels. The garlic, which my mother declared very hearty, survived without issue. It is all up, and growing much more quickly that the stuff of my own from last year. It is hard to see in this picture, but it has two days of growth in a loose bed against a fence and it is doing really well. Many stems are already about 8 cm high.


My plants are doing pretty well, but I am worried about how much harvest I'll get this year given the late spring. I have already planted spinach, beet greens and lettuces in a raised bed on my drive way, because I need to replace the mouse harvest. I think I may also buy some larger bedding plants to augment what I have in the greenhouse and give my garden a fighting chance.