When we left for Botswana, it was still winter here. A few of the bulbs were poking out of the dirt, a few twigs had small buds, but most plants were still sleeping.
When we got back two weeks later, spring had arrived. The trees are budding or flowering, the hostas are sending up shoots, the mums and hydrangea are getting bright green leaves.
And check out my fern; I thought it died last year:
Best of all is the vegetable garden.
The day before we left, I planted onion sets, beets, spinach, snow peas, leeks, and rhubarb. By the time we got back, everything had come up except the leeks and rhubarb; by a few days later, the leeks had sprouted. (I seem to have bad luck with rhubarb.)
Two weeks later, the spinach is beginning to look a lot like spinach. (Everything looks like what it is now except the leeks, which look like chives, and the lettuce, which I just planted last weekend.)
Those two photos of the whole garden were taken on April 8 and April 26 – a lot of changes in 2.5 weeks. (Click them for bigger versions.)
Now if the squirrels don’t dig too much, we might be set for some great salads and omelets.
Last weekend I dug some compost and extra dirt into the front bed and put a rabbit fence around three quarters of it. Next weekend I’ll buy more fencing along with tomatoes, peppers, various herbs, and (I hope) eggplant.
I never posted a final update from last season: We got lots of hot peppers, a few bell peppers, a few tomatoes (the ones in the back got late blight), and lots of parsley. The cabbage succumbed to cabbage worms, the rutabagas didn’t produce rutabagas, the eggplants and zucchini didn’t fruit. It’s sunnier in the front so things should do better there, and I tried to put only early plants in the back.