They Tell Me It’s Spring

 
It’s spring—or at least that’s what my calendar says. We’ve had rainsnowhailrainsnowhailrainrain 80degreeweather, followed by more rainsnowhail. I, for one, am in favor of unplugging Mother Nature and then plugging her back in to see if that helps.

Snow Skittles

Usually by this time of year I will have already visited a couple of my favorite dealers—I mean local nurseries—for inspiration and supplies. I would have quite the happy little collection of baby plants sitting in the shelter of my back deck, waiting for the first week of May, so they can be safely tucked into their summer homes. My straw bale garden would have been properly conditioned and ready to go.

Alas, spring this year has been super “F”—as in super fickle. I have my straw bales (SBG) in place—conveniently delivered from Overby Hay & Grain by my co-worker Haze and her husband Guy, and currently being watered by the aforementioned Mother Nature. I only have to remember to go out about every other day and sprinkle a half-cup of nitrogen fertilizer on them.

Unfortunately, “Mom” is handling the watering requirements to her specifications and not according to the needs of my SBG. The SBG book clearly states that the bales should ideally be watered with “warm” or “day old” water—water that has been sitting around in buckets. I’m pretty sure they didn’t have water with a top coating of ice in mind when they wrote the book.

At the end of winter this year I thought I’d get a jump on the growing season by starting seeds indoors. I planted green beans, snow peas, and sweet basil. Then I promptly embarked for a three-week trip and left my little sprouts in the loving care of my cat sitter (Hi Eileen!)

Kitchen Table Harvest?

When I came home, not only my cats but my plants had thrived under her green thumb care—to the surprising extent that my green beans were bearing fruit! With the way the weather has been acting, indoor gardening might be my new hobby... 

March

 We have achieved March! February, with all its extremes, is in the books. Was it just me or did February seem about three months long? Shortest month, my eye.

March is the month in which daylight savings time makes its long-anticipated return—hello more daylight! March is also the month of spring, so even if we get a rogue snowflake or two, we can comfort ourselves that it’s “only a spring snow,” guaranteed not to stick around for weeks on end. That’s what I tell myself anyway, and I believe me.

Some years, March is also the month of Re-Birth and chocolate bunnies, but not this year. In 2022, you’ll have to wait until April to get your egg dye out.

While Easter is sometimes a bonus March event, St. Patrick’s Day is a constant. Green shamrocks! Green beer! Green everything! There’s also something about “coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb”-- or is it “in like a lamb, out like a lion”? Anyway, I think it means that March is unpredictable—but its unpredictability is to be expected—with all that extra daylight you can even see it coming.

March is the month of kites, daffodil parades, Winter Carnival, and Girl Scout cookies. Covid numbers are down, and mask mandates are slated to be lifted. Wouldn’t it be nice if March was the month that saw a return to “normal?” I’m looking forward to it. 

Hello “Normal”!

To keep our “Back to Normal” as safe as possible, free at-home Covid tests are available thru the post office. Go to special.usps.com and fill out the form to get your four free tests. Limit of one order per address. Test results available as early as 30 minutes, no lab needed. You can also call 800-232-0233 if you need help placing your order. And I’m told that these tests do not require tickling your brain with a cotton swab in order to work efficiently.

What’s not to like? Free, fast, and nasal friendly.

Recount Requested

 My snow drops are up, and in full flower—the first flower of Spring at my house.

 My Jiffy Pots have been plumped and hydrated--- 

ready for the corn and bean and peas seeds that are putting in their 24 hours at the veggie seed spa that is my kitchen table.

 

I have made a plan to acquire my straw bales and start the “seasoning” process. I am ready for Spring. Let’s DO THIS THING!

Then I woke up to a mini blizzard on Monday. That’s right—snow.

It was my understanding that we were all on the “been there, done that, over it,” page. Did I miss a meeting? Is the consensus that we go back to colder temperatures and shoveling driveways and power outages? Because I don’t remember voting for this. 

Annie & Abby vote 
"Can haz Spring please."

I have lots of gardening chores that are still on my To Do List: giving my private hedge a high and tight haircut is near the top and I’d prefer not to do it in the snow. I’d appreciate it if ya’ll would join me in some magical thinking and get winter behind us.

Even the Indian Plums are ready...

Thawed and Confused, Again

 I have a confession to make. I am an incurable optimist. Every year as soon as New Year’s celebrations are completed and the confetti has been swept up, once whatever snow we have had has melted I immediately assume that THIS YEAR we are going to have an early spring. If I’m outside, and a breeze wafts by that doesn’t freeze my nose off my face, I start wondering if I have any gas in my lawn mower, because clearly, I’m going to need to start mowing my grass. Probably as soon as next week!

Over it.
Next!

Reality doesn’t matter. Who cares if it’s still January—I’m pretty sure that’s the sun I see. And if you can see the sun, summer can’t be that far off. And summer means flowers, and gardening, and trips to the beach, and camping, and fireworks, and flip-flops and bees. Did I eat all the s’mores chocolate? Where do you suppose I put the sunblock?

Every year I am convinced that this year is the year. Every year I am surprised—nay, SHOCKED, shocked, I say-- when the snow and bone chilling cold return before I’ve located my lotion. I did not see that coming--who knew January could be so cold? 

I turn my hopes to February. Surely February will herald the return of spring, we’ll probably see the first robin right around Valentine’s Day. I can use my Valentine’s chocolate for s’mores, hooray!

That’s the beauty of optimism, it needn’t be fact based. In fact, if it IS fact based, I’m not sure that it qualifies as optimism—it’s FACT. Optimism is more ethereal, like hope. And as Emily Dickinson once wrote “Hope is a thing with feathers.” I think she meant a robin. Hello Spring!

Expect this in my garden--next week.
Probably. 

May Flowers

 May is an excellent month for gardening. And by gardening, I mean buying flowers. Lots and lots of flowers. 

Besides all of my usual flower buying sources, May is the month of Gardening Groups Plant Sales and student horticulturist sales. If you play your cards right and plan your route carefully, you can make a single weekend into a plant-buying bonanza. Or so I hear.

It is also possible to tack on a little plant buying onto whatever activity you have scheduled. Need a new spark plug for your mower? Bet there’s a garden center where they sell spark plugs. On a family weekend away to the beach? Bet there are at least three nurseries that you’ll drive by on the way home...couldn’t hurt to stop in and see what they have to offer.

In addition to my flower buying habit, I have recently started vegetable gardening. The addition—finally-- of an electric fence to keep the elk out has made vegetable garden a lot less frustrating. Strawbale gardening has made it easy to grow tomatoes and cucumbers, beans and peas, zucchini, and pumpkins. To be honest—the zucchini and pumpkins grew a little too well; so much so that occasionally I would hack the vines back to keep their quest for neighborhood domination in check.

Tim Kelly brought his tiller over last week and smoothed out my future corn patch. I aspire to grow a bumper crop of corn this year. Last summer I planted about ten hills of corn as an experiment and it was promising. I harvested about 6 ears total, until there was the unfortunate incident of the Elk that ATE EVERYTHING. All because I left my fence unplugged when I went away for the weekend...stupid dang elk.

My garden would be a lot further along if it weren’t for the lawn that needs constant mowing, and the grandbabies that need kissing, and all those good books won’t read themselves. I don’t let any of those things discourage me from buying more flowers though, anytime the opportunity to crosses my path.

Spring Sprang Sprung

 “Hot enough for you?” Not the phrase you expect to be on people’s lips this time of year, but this weekend was certainly worthy of that exact conversation. Temperatures were well into the 70’s-- and even above that in some locations.

Aiden enjoys the outdoors

Vultures taking the sun

Tea Party

Congrats to the Newest Husky!

It was perfect weather for dining al fresco with friends and neighbors, celebrating milestones—congrats to Maricella—a newly minted “Husky”! Tea parties on the back deck, cuddling babies, moving into a new house—congrats Cameron and Beth! Mowing the grassing, hiking into* Packwood Lake, and all manner of other, outdoor, fair weather activity activities. 

John like cake. Clearly.

Lane didn't get any cake. Sad.

It was really good cake tho

*Disclaimer: we did hike into Packwood Lake. Just not all the way. Most of the way, sure. But once I started post-holing in a snow field that went on as far as the eye could see, well—that seemed a sign from the Patron Saint of Hikers that it was time to turn around. So, we did.

Spring seems to have sprung with intention this year. However, I am a lifelong Northwesterner and this is not my first rodeo. Even as I formulate these words I can feel the clouds rolling in. Good thing I already mowed my lawn. And yes, I call my patch of thatch, moss, and weeds “lawn.” It’s green, and I mow it: lawn. It was also very dusty, so if you were my neighbor? This would have been a very bad weekend to hang your laundry out to dry.

My straw bales are “cooking” nicely. It won’t be long before I’ll be able to plant them. And speaking of plants, I’m really itching to start my annual Nursery-Hopping Road Trip. I guess “trips” plural would be more accurate, because once I start buying flowers it’s hard to stop. 

Speaking of flowers---during our hike on Sunday I spotted a lone Lady Slipper orchid; a fragile wildflower I haven’t seen in years. Perhaps Lady Slippers were just waiting for the perfect spring day to put in their appearance. 

April MishMash

 Yes, mishmash is too a word. If it wasn’t a word, what did you just read? I rest my case.

April weather has been all over the place—which is kind of normal. I remember the Easters of my childhood often containing a little bit of everything; rain, sun, snow, some wind, perhaps a brief burst of hail—or as one of my sons referred to it as when he was little and observed hail falling on our back deck—“Look, Mom! Snow Skittles!”

April First has come and gone. I recall my dad’s love for April Fool’s pranks—one of his great successes was telling his teenaged daughter-- at sunrise-- that her horse got out. I dragged my sleepy carcass out of bed and into boots and came stumbling out to ask him in which direction my wayward steed had been headed only to have him triumphantly crow “April Fools!” Well played, Willis. Well played.

Johnny searchs for hanging blueberries

Easter was last week and I watched the next generation of kids and dogs, hunting Easter eggs. The weather was semi-co-operative and the egg hunt was held outdoors—not indoors. A much better locations, we can all agree. It’s a lot easier for the dogs to abscond with some delicious treasure that way.

The sun came out long enough that I was even able to mow my grass for the first time this year. And in related good news—my lawn mower fired right up. Hooray!

We have new neighbors here in my neck of the woods and they are lovely people. Which, in itself, is nice. They also happen to be lovely people with a tractor brush hog attachment, a dislike of encroaching blackberry bushes, and a willingness to subdue my unruly vines as well as their own. They say fences make good neighbors but I submit that tractor owning neighbors make good neighbors. I feel pretty fortunate to have a plethora a generous, tractor owning neighbors, and Dene and Gloria fit right in. Welcome to the neighborhood!

All in all, April is off to a good start.

It Must Be Spring

 You know how I can tell? If you guessed robin’s tugging on worms or daffodils blooming or <please insert some other signs of spring I’ve failed to mention here>. If you guessed any of these you are sadly mistaken. I know it is spring because I need to mow the grass-- but my lawn got snowed on.

Of course, it wasn’t a lot of snow-- but that’s not my point. It’s also not my point that, resting on the laurels of the prior year’s successful lawn mower maintenance, I completely forgot to do any last fall. And here I am again, with my grass slowly greening, wondering if my mower will start...

Fortunately for me, there was some pre-season use of the mower-as-skidder, so all that dragging away of trimmed of tree limbs means that it hasn’t been that long since my mower has been powered up. It’s entirely possible that the next time the sun peeks out, my mower will fire right up.

This time of year, it’s a race to trim my grass before it gets as high as an elephant’s eye while avoiding rain-mixed-with-snow-showers. Or the ever-unfortunate “it’s a gloriously sunny day but I’ve got spring fever and am either 1) on a picnic; or 2) on a road trip to every nursery with in a day’s driving distance,  buying all the plants; or 3) both.”

A sure sign of spring around Casa Sume is the appearance of plants, seeds, straw bales—and usually in that bass-ackwards order. After the impressive—sometimes frightening success—of last year’s Straw Bale Garden, I’m kind of chomping on the bit to get going again. I can’t wait to have my first plateful of tomato bruschetta—topped with fresh whole milk mozzarella and new basil. I may have already purchased a tiny little nibbin of a start of my new favorite heirloom tomato, “Kellogg’s Breakfast.” While I have yet to purchase the straw that will be Mrs. Kellogg’s new home, I’m having her keep me company in the house. She has already grown to three times her height at time of purchase and I think it’s because she likes bingeing on Netflix with me...

Annie isn’t sure if a tomato on the couch is A GOOD IDEA

Perfect Storm is Perfect

 I have a bad habit of seizing on the first sunny day after the snow melts and declaring “Early Spring!”

Monday was perfect for such a declaration. We turned the calendar page from snowy February to springy March and the sun rose to meet the occasion. Yes, yes, I can hear all the literalist out there saying “actually, the sun rises every day” but I think you take my meaning. I’ll show you my poetic license if I must-- but now we are getting way down the bunny trail here and why do you always do this to me?

Where was I? Oh yes, Perfection.

A sunny start to a new week, a brand-new month. March is the month of Spring, of an extra hour of daylight, of green things—including green beer, but I shall not digress again. March is the perfect month of new beginnings.

Aiden Allen

I used my perfect day to go play outside with my grandson Aiden and it was marvelous. We played in his clubhouse. We examined tree bark, and needles and cones—some of which tastes better than you might imagine, just saying. We walked around his backyard a looked at all the growing things his mom has nurtured. Things that are now readying themselves to burst forth and bloom—and I can’t wait.

I started daydreaming about seedlings, about straw bales and garden centers...about trips to all my favorite nurseries....

Anyway—all of that is to say that Monday was such a perfect storm of Perfect that I plum forgot I needed to write a new Over My Garden Gate.

Sorry about that. Maybe next week?

Weather Rules: 2020 Edition

I don’t make the rules. 

Apparently.

My understanding of the weather was that it followed certain basic patterns—rules, if you will.

Rule #1: It starts raining in earnest in November and does not stop until April.

Rule #2: The prior rule maybe superseded by periods of snow.

Rule #3: The rains, from April to July, turn to showers and may be periodically interrupted by the sun. Or snow.

Rule #4: Summer—warm to hot, day after day of sunshine, no rain—you know, SUMMER? Summer begins on July 5^th—unless July 5^th falls on a weekend, then summer begins on the following Monday and runs—WITHOUT RAIN—until the second weekend in August, (Logger’s Jubilee, for the uninitiated) which **may** have a shower or two. THOSE ARE THE RULES.

Imagine my dismay to find Mother Nature flagrantly flouting this time-honored tradition! What use are rules, if she’s not going to follow them? Why was I so stoic all thru June, if not to be rewarded with WALL TO WALL SUNSHINE in July? How will I grow enough zucchini to menace my friends and family?

Last week, I started wondering if maybe we shouldn’t unplug Mother Nature, count to ten, and then plug her back in. Something was clearly WRONG. Since I didn’t know where her power cord plugged in, I had to settle for percussive maintenance, and stomped around, muttering under my breath.

That seems to have worked—based on all the happy little sunshine icons my phone weather app is now showing me for the foreseeable future. You’re welcome. But it got me to thinking—perhaps I should run as an alternative candidate to Mother Nature? I’m mildly qualified—I’m a mom, I love nature, except for the part where the mama lion eats the baby gazelle. Or the part where she **doesn’t** and then goes back to her starving babies. Clearly, that part needs improving. Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.

Oh, sure, if I get the job I know I’ll have to put up with people complaining all the time; “Snow, I love snow, more snow.” Or “I like it cooler, could we take the temperature down a few degrees?” Or “Last week was perfect, can we just have last week all the time?”

Fine. If you like your weather, you can keep your weather, I promise. But for the rest of us—I’ll just lay out some Weather Rules, and since we all know what to expect—NO COMPLAINING.

Gardening in a Time of Pandemic

The sun has been lovely these last couple of days. I find it so much easier to be optimistic with the sun on my face. My gardens are receiving a little more TLC that is “normal”—in part because of the sun, but the truth is the Stay at Home order has a lot to do with it. “Stay at Home” means not running off to nurseries near and far and indulging my flower fixation. Or buying shoes. Or whatever. Anyway, I’m at home.

Working on the layout.

I’ve decided that I want to have a vegetable garden this year. Since I own neither tiller nor tractor-- and am far too lazy to employ a shovel—I’ve decided to go the Straw Bale Garden route and save myself a lot of labor. My bales were well under $10 each, and available locally—Overby’s Hay & Grain, for the curious.

For once, I’ve started the 12 day “maturation” process well ahead of local planting time, so I’ve had time to play with the design layout of my garden. I’m going rather small—a five bale garden—and have oriented the garden to best take advantage of the sun, while still staying clear of any lawn shenanigans that might ensue over the summer: Slip ‘n Slide, Beersbee—it’s Frisbee, but with beer, Wiffleball, Cornhole, what have you. I’m holding on to optimism that perhaps some little “normal” will be reestablished and the clan can gather once more. When it does, I plan that my SBG won’t be in the path.

I’m still mulling over what I want to plant: tomatoes are a given, but there are carrots, green beans, potatoes, radishes, lettuces, pumpkins...I don’t think corn is a good crop for SBG—too top heavy/tippy and would use up a lot of my available planting area---and I’m having fun choosing what to plant. I may or may not have added a packet of zucchini seeds to my shopping cart. Strange days indeed.

I have NO IDEA how those
zucchini seeds got in there!

I have a package of marigold seeds to plant—I’ll transplant the seedlings into the sides of the bales. There they can both beautify and protect, as many garden pests don’t like marigolds.

One of my favorite summer activities that revolves around gardening is taking and giving garden tours with fellow gardeners. I suppose this year we can do it “virtually” --but they will be a lot less likely to help me weed or deadhead. **sigh** Fortunately, one of the upsides of SBG is you have far fewer weeds to pull.

My neighborhood is busy with vegetable garden prep, and I have a feeling many people will be looking for a healthy, at-home hobby. Gardening can nourish both body and soul, so go get your grubbies on and go play in the dirt. 

Or the straw, whatever.

April, with the Showers

April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land...” -T.S. Eliot

“Only to smash them flat with hail...”-S.A. Sume, not at all bitter. Probably.

April is the month of renewal—Easter, rebirth, tender green grass, brightly colored eggs, fuzzy baby chicks—you know the drill. If you’ve spent more than two Aprils in the Pacific North We(s)t, you know that any spring celebration is bound to get rained on. And it just wouldn’t be Easter without the egg hunt being interrupted by a sudden squall of what one of my twins once referred to as “snow Skittles.”

Sun, rain, hail, repeat-- April is a wee bit volatile. March has the reputation for multiple personalities-- lion vs. lamb--but April can hold her own when it comes to spontaneous mood swings. As a child, I remember many an Easter afternoon, my sister and I, trying to time our egg hunting forays in between cloudbursts. More than once my poor mother gave up on Mother Nature’s cruel vagaries and allowed us to hide our REAL EGG Easter eggs in the house---something I do not recommend. Hiding 12 eggs while only finding 11 happened more than once at our house. It’s never good to find that pesky 12^th egg DAYS after the fact...

Last fall I planted a lovely combo of purple crocus, double-ruffled salmon and cream-colored daffodil, and perfect aubergine tulips. This spring I find myself rushing out between showers to gently shake the rain from the heavy-headed daffodils and try to stand them upright amongst the better-postured tulips. So far, my efforts have been successful, but I know it’s only a matter of time until one of my heavy-headed beauties succumbs, surrendering to the pulse of rain and landing face down in the mud.

When that happens, I will sigh, and trudge out to rescue her and her broken stem. I’ll bring her in, shower her quickly in the flow of the kitchen sink faucet, and place her in a single vase—beautiful, perhaps a bitty gritty, but undaunted.

No matter what your April weather brings, may you remain undaunted as well. Happy Easter!

Me, Easter 1964

Uh, Sun?

Sun is not a four-letter S-word, Snow is. And I’ve had just about enough, thank you very much. Monday morning found me wading thru four inches of wet slop in Morton, with nary a sunbeam to behold. Thank you, NO, Snow, I’m so over you. Be gone!

When it hasn’t been snowing, the heavens have opened and the deluge has burst forth. With exactly the type of rain my grass seems to prefer growing to. And growing. And growing.

Oh, I know last week I was all “Oh, look at the sun, I think I’ll go for a walk. Perhaps have a nap. Whatever, my grass will be there when I get to it,” thinking that the scattered three days of sun would eventually attract each other and turn into multiple days of sun. And they will. Eventually. By my reckoning, probably around July 5—unless that day falls on a weekend and then—FOR SURE—the following Monday. But in the meantime, my lawn is rapidly converting itself in to a product more suitable for haying than for mowing.

I have managed to hook my lawnmower battery up to my lawnmower battery charger—and by managed, I of course mean somebody else did it for me—and my battery is now fully charged. I am ready. The weather? Not so much.

I know I have only myself to blame: I should have had my mower fully charged from March onward—waiting for the sun to peep out from behind the cloud cover so I could burst out of the garage astride my mower like horseman out of the gates after an elusive rodeo calf, make as many circuits of the lawn as the weather lull would allow before being forced to seek shelter from the rampaging elements’ return.

Perhaps someday I’ll desert the ranks of the ill-prepared and join that group of tight-jawed individuals who every February sit slowly stroking their mower blades by hand with a sharpening stone and a far-away look in their eyes, dreaming of that one, fine day in April when they can emerge from their winter long preparations and mow GRASS, not hay. Their oil is always changed, their spark plugs are never fouled.

They probably never get to have naps, though.