Awakenings

A beautiful day at last! The grass is genuinely green. While most trees are not yet showing signs of life, the sassafras buds are swelling.

Sassafras buds swelling

We are in the midst of our annual and ongoing battle against box elder bugs and Asian ladybugs. Seems like every time I open a cabinet in the kitchen or bathroom, one or the other is crawling around in there (or both!). I opened the storage box on the patio to get out my boot jack for the season and found hundreds of box elder bugs congregating between the lid and the side of the box. 

The numerous box elder bugs on the outside of the patio box were nothing compared to what was lurking beneath the lid

Terry says when the box elders bloom, the box elder bugs will have better things to do than pester us. We’ll have to wait for the soybeans to come up before the ladybugs leave us alone.

Terry suggested that we let the hens have the whole apple orchard to run around in this spring while we try to get the turf to grow back outside of Coop 1. To that end, he has been busy installing chicken wire all around the bottom of the deer fence. An advantage is that the new fence will keep out the rabbits, who have chewed through the deer fence in places. We will use Coop 1 for the chicks when they arrive during the week of June 4.

Terry lining the bottom of the deer fence with 3' high chicken wire

The garlic was up last week, but I forgot to mention it to Hilda. When I saw her this morning, she reported excitedly that the garlic was up! Unlike me, however, she took the initiative to take the row cover off.

Garlic in the garden

I walked down to the creek to see if anything was coming up yet. The straw covering the space for my new woodland garden was still in place in spite of a couple of windy days last week. There was no sign of the may apples, trout lilies, maidenhair fern, wild ginger, jack-in-the-pulpit, or Dutchman’s breeches. Only the ramps were up, which was exciting. I think I planted three and two have survived. Still, if they are in a happy place, they should start spreading. We won’t be harvesting this year.

Ramps down by the creek

I don’t think we’ve had flooding lately, but I saw this corncob stuck in a sapling, probably from when the big snow melted.

A corncob from a neighbor's field got tangled in a sapling during a flood

Terry dropped off several bags of mulch by the fifth oak several weeks ago when it seemed like warm weather might be coming. It didn’t, of course, so there it sat. My task for today was to clean out around my perennials and spread the mulch.

The fifth oak with bags of mulch

Most of the perennials were starting to sprout. Here, for example, is Jacob’s Ladder.

Jacob's ladder starting to grow beneath the fifth oak

There were some dandelions, which I had to dig out, but there weren’t as many weeds as there have been (and likely will be) later in the season. Once the gardening starts, though, I’m hard pressed to find time to keep after it.

Out of habit, I started with three shirts—a waffle shirt under a sweatshirt under a lined flannel shirt. The flannel shirt was soon on the ground. By the time I was 1/3 of the way around the tree, I had to take my sweatshirt off as well. It felt good to be able to move unencumbered by layers. It’s been a long time. Here’s how the mulch looked when I got done.

The mulch and cleaned up perennials when I was done

Hilda ordered ginger and turmeric plants as a little experiment. She was horrified to find the box sitting on the front step when the temperature was well below freezing. Somehow the company she ordered from failed to send a notice when the plants were shipped. She potted them up and put them in the greenhouse. As I was getting the rake from the garden shed to start my mulching, she came down to show me that the ginger had sprouted!

A ginger sprout

Overall, then, things are looking up. So good to be outside again.