Fiacré's spade: Spring goes on

Somehow spring progresses even without Hilda. I took a walk back to the creek last week. She loved it back there, and she would have been delighted to see all the violets blooming in the grass.

Violets in the grass by the creek

In addition to being delighted at the grass and violets, I was delighted in the absence of the dreaded garlic mustard. We really do seem to be winning the war, not by pulling it all up, which would take forever, but by weed whacking it before it flowered two years in a row. Garlic mustard is a biennial, so the first year of weed whacking, the two-year-old plants will fail to set seed while the seeds in the soil sprout into immature plants. If those plants also cannot set seed, there will be no plants in the third year. This will only work if there is no seed bank, which is seeds that lurk unsprouted in the soil for more than a year. Evidence suggests that our soil does not have much of a garlic mustard seed bank.

My jack-in-the-pulpit came back, but does not appear to be spreading. My friend Huck just brought me two more jack-in-the-pulpits to plant in Hilda’s memory, which I have done.

Jack-in-the-pulpit. The orange is plastic tape to keep Terry from weed whacking it.

The mayapples, on the other hand, are finally starting to take off.

Spreading mayapples

Up by the garage, the trillium that I transplanted from Camp Pokonokah Hills many years ago are doing well. This brings me a great deal of joy. I will probably divide them this year or next. I haven’t picked a place to put them yet.

Trillium

Lots of fun things are happening in the high tunnel. The first planting of peas are flowering. It won’t be long before we’ll have swelling pods. Because I have no idea how many plants it takes to make a serving of peas, I won’t be surprised if we have three peas apiece for our first meal.

Pea flowers in the high tunnel

I planted two cucumbers in the soil of the high tunnel. One germinated and is growing ever so slowly. I planted three in a pot in the house, and they are growing like crazy. I soon had to transplant them to the high tunnel because they outgrew their pots.

The cucumber that germinated in the high tunnel on the left; one that I started indoors on the right

I have been carrying on with the tomato and pepper seedlings as best I can without Hilda's guidance. I haven't killed any yet, and the germination was nearly 100%, much higher than I anticipated when I planted two or three seeds per pot. Thus I have roughly 2.5 times the number of seedlings that I need. I hate making those life and death decisions.

Seedlings in the greenhouse

We had a little rain two weeks ago. We need more quite desperately. We thought we might get some this morning, but so far it’s nothing but a drop here and there. “Nuisance rain” Terry calls it. The last rain provided evidence of my suspicion that raccoons go over every square inch of the property every night.

Raccoon prints by the patio

More of our bird friends have come back. The first rose breasted grosbeak I saw looked pretty moth-eaten, perhaps a first-year male. I don’t know how much mating success he’s going to have with such washed-out plumage.

A not very rosy rose breasted grosbeak

The second male I saw was more typical.

A better specimen of grosbeak manliness

We have seen both male and female Baltimore orioles. I have only seen a male orchard oriole, and never long enough for a picture.

Male Baltimore oriole

Three white crowned sparrows have been hanging around longer than I expected. In previous years, they have come and gone almost as quickly as the white throated sparrow.

Three white crowned sparrows

We are finally seeing hummingbirds. Just this morning, I saw two on the feeder at the same time. Normally, they spend more time chasing each other away and defending their turf than actually drinking. It seems maladaptive. In this case, the female was first, but she held her ground when a male approached. She does seem to be regarding him with some suspicion.