Spring – looking and feeling like it

Seedling peach tree in blossom.

Spring is not officially here until March 20, and the weather has been cold, wet, windy, and it even snowed for one minute within the last two weeks. Snow is a once every ten years event in these parts. I slept through the whole thing since it happened very early in the morning. I was around for the hail later that day though. Various weather reports foretold doom to fruit trees when the night time low temperatures were supposed to drop below freezing for several hours.

Today looks and feels like spring though. It is sunny and warm, with a light breeze. The bees are out working all the blossoms in the yard - nanking cherry, apricot, peach, rosemary, calendula, and more. The hellebore is in full bloom, right on time, and a few other perennials are starting to push through.  A few of the seedling peach trees I've grown are flowering this year, and if they make fruit this year I'll be able to determine if they are worth keeping as they are or if I should make a graft and let the scion be the dominant tree part. I have two good fruiting peaches (a yellow peach and a white peach) and have a friend who has collected scion from his peach tree, so I can still have multiple peaches on one good peach stock. I'll be practicing my grafting skills soon.

Today one of the two hummingbirds fledged, and the other one is still in its nest, working on perching technique, building up wing strength with various exercise sessions, and preening. The first to fledge has been flitting around in the mulberry tree while the mother bird chases away various interlopers (scrub jays mostly), and comes back to feed both her offspring. I did not take lots of photos with this set of birds, since they look just like the birds I photographed heavily last summer. It was frequently very cold during their incubation and subsequent rearing that I feared they would not make it, but the mother bird really worked on insulating the nest, and the birds made it. I'm hoping to watch the one still in the nest take its first flight.

Hummingbird yet to leave the nest.

Nanking cherry in flower

First break of dormancy on the lemon verbena shrub (I was worried it wouldn't survive the cold weather)

Chicken out on the pasture.
Both hens are now consistently laying their eggs in the nest box.

Nanking Cherry Harvest

Almost half a pound of nanking cherries in today's harvest. These fruits are about the size of a garbanzo bean that has been soaked. They are a little tart and have a pit, but not so large as to make it undesirable to eat the fruit. The pit comes away easily from the flesh. This is the second spring for these plants, so I'm impressed at the amount of fruit on such young shrubs.

In future years, and larger harvests, I imagine I'd make preserves out of these, but this year they'll just get eaten up.

Food Forest

I just watched Geoff Lawton's Food Forest DVD again. It is so packed with information, especially just being able to see his designs at different ages and the close spacing of the trees, shrubs, and other plants in the designs. I'm slowly incorporating those concepts into my own half acre. I worked on the shrub layer last season, and now those shrubs are breaking dormancy and offering examples for good and less good placement. I'm also noticing my zone 1 is a little lacking and will be building that up in this season. Zone 1 is especially important to me during the winter, and my lovely red romaine lettuces were planted too far from the kitchen last season. This coming lettuce planting season (late summer) I'll plant a larger quantity of lettuce and have it closer to the kitchen.

But spring-like things are happening around here now, and though we've had a cooler end of winter than we'd like, the promise of abundant harvests is here. I've started many different types of tomato seeds under agribon, on the sunny-side of the house, and they've popped up their cotyledons. I'm starting to see shrub cuttings I put in the ground last fall starting to grow (some figs, lemon verbena). I've noticed some peach seedlings popping up where I put pits in the ground in the early winter. I'll be able to try my hand at grafting on those seedlings. The chard is exhibiting perfect eating characteristics, since we've had such a lot of rain and a little bit of warming a couple weeks ago. The parsley (of which I have many plants) is starting to bolt, and the strawberry plants are starting to bloom. The cherry tree has broken dormancy as have a few of the figs. Both of the older peach trees are blooming, the yellow peach and the white peach.

Many of the bare root trees I planted are breaking dormancy. The pear, quince and pomegranates are all pushing out buds. The plum and apricot have not pushed out yet.

The berm & basin in the front yard, which the gophers worked to make less basin-like, is bursting with daikon blossoms and the Spanish lavender is blooming too. The Ginkgo has not yet broken dormancy, but I think it waited til April last year.

Great progress was made on the ivy-removal project in the past few weeks. With more ivy gone I extended our patio space by moving in more decomposed granite. The DG is a great surface for a patio, it allows water in, it wears well, and is easy to touch up. It is also a regional resource since the Sierra Nevada mountains are made of granite and are fairly nearby.
Ivy March 2010

Ivy May 2009

The first section of patio was done in 2008, and covered bare soil where ivy had grown. That first section was just big enough for a few chairs and two small outdoor tables, but we spent many hours out there after putting down the decomposed granite. It made a lovely outdoor space in which to spend time.

Patio 2008

A guild of sorts

This selection of plants happened to come together in a rather unplanned way. Leeks, chard, borage, fig, parsley, clover, and alpine strawberries. I also grew daikon and fava beans as cover crops. I feel like something is missing from this guild, but I am not sure what it is. This area is located near the oaks and the plants benefit from the oak leaves. I usually don't dig the leeks when I harvest them, rather I cut the below the soil line and they do grow back from the roots. Borage is a mineral accumulator and bees love the blossoms, which are edible, as are the leaves. I think maybe it needs nasturtium or perhaps a melon for the summer. Something to cover the ground after the daikon, fava, and borage are cut. I don't want too much clover since it is known to attract gophers (they also love fig roots and alium roots too).
I loved looking at this planting progress through the fall and winter
Here is a photo of the same spot in November 2008. Note the droopy chard plant, fungi, very small borage plants, lots of blossoms on the alpine strawberries.

Budding Grapes

The grapes are starting to push out leaves.