Pushing Forward / Reaching Out

March is one of my favorite months because plants that have been sleeping all winter wake up and push out new leaves, new growth, new stems to meet the world.  

Virginia Mountain Mint regrowing (Pycnanthemum virginianum)

Of course this winter has been so warm that there was some waking up way too early, but I can just hope for the best.  The worry with too early wake-up calls is that plants come out of dormancy and then get nailed when the temperature drops again. For hardy herbs it is not a problem but tender peach flowers don't like that chill!
  

Self seeded chervil

Some fragrant herbs have been leafing out, offering us fresh bunches of chervil and cilantro to cook with or chop into salads.

Peach flower buds on a Hale Haven tree

Flowering Cherry

Elderberry leafing out

Hazelwood shrubs are going about pollinating each other right about now.  The male flowers called catkins have been hanging on the shrubs all winter.  Now, they open up and shed pollen that the wind hopefully will carry to other trees' female flowers.  The female flowers are small and red and located right against the branches. Hazelwoods do best with plantings of multiple trees to pollinate each other.  Since this will be our first year getting nuts, I used my finger to help do a little hand pollinating for some extra insurance.

Pollen on a male hazelwood flower (catkin)

Red female flowers on hazelwood

Regrowth of Anise Hyssop (Agastache foeniculum)

Anise hyssop is one of my favorite flowers / herbs.  It seeds itself everywhere which is fine with me.  Its leaves and flowers give off an anise scent when crushed and bumblebees adore its lovely purple flower spikes.  

Ida Joe with purple sage

I am looking forward to Spring and love seeing all these reminders that it is coming!

Spring Pictures

Spring came late in 2015, but when she came, she came full force.  Dandelions opened today, magnolias have been blooming for almost a week, and the knotweed is at my knees.  Everything is popping open and greening up.  

spring chickens

spring mycelium in my sheet mulching

hello little fungi

ripped and flipped cover crop

cohosh

bottle gentian

elderberry

apple trees

Signs of Spring

Bees are bringing in pollen

Happy to be out flying!

Crocuses

The garlic is up!

Purple Passion Asparagus

Chicken Coop Finished + Spring Asparagus

Chickity Chick Coop

From the front: coopity coop.

Precoce d'Argenteil asparagus.  French heirloom variety.  Yum.  

The chicken coop is done.  Thank goodness.  The chicks are no longer little babes, they are big ol babes ready to move on out of the basement.  They will be 7 weeks on Monday.  So, their planned migration outside is tomorrow morning.  The weather shouldn't be bad and the night low will be in the 40's.  I want the coop to be largely open air in the summer, but I've added heavy duty plastic sheeting onto the front to block wind while they are little and its still chilly.  Not the most attractive but, hey, it works, I hope.  I admit, it was a case of "They need to go outside, NOW!  What can I cover the front with to block wind?  Plastic!  Let's do it!"  The good thing is the hardware cloth really supports the plastic so hopefully their will be no ripping in the wind.  Once that comes off, I will be working out how to make the front flexible as either opened or closed, perhaps with polycarbonate or plexi that could be attached or removed as windows/windblock.  

If I had had more leisure time recently, I would have been marching all 26 chicks outside into a chicken tractor or pen so they could get used to outside but, time has been short.  This will be their first time out of doors.  

The coop plan is modified from www.thegardencoop.com plans.  Coop bits:

- Coop is on a hillside.  Cinderblock piers of different heights make it level.

- Hardware cloth completely covers it in addition to a 2' apron all the way around for digging predators.  If the electric fence fails or we take it down for winter, the coop is still predator proof.  

- 6' x 20' heavy duty vinyl tarp with brass grommets composes 3 of the walls.  The idea is I can open it a bit to increase ventilation when its really hot in summer.  It took me quite awhile to find such an odd size of tarp but I found one at www.mytarp.com.  I'm happy with the quality and it was made in the U.S.  We may add extra insulation measures in winter.  

- Bottom of coop is soil.  Their is no floor.  The plan is deep litter over the poops.

- Roof is fiberglass corrugated panels that transmit light but not enough to make it extra hot in there. 

- Jason pretty much built this single handedly with some extremely helpful and intense workdays from our friend Jeff.  Thanks Jeff!! 

I'm sure we will realize problems and have to come up with solutions in this plan, but that is half the fun.  I hope they like their new home!

 In other news, we have been picking asparagus at Garden Dreams for a few weeks.  We have 3 varieties: Precoce d'Argenteuil (delicious), Purple Passion (sweet), and Jersey Supreme (productive).  

Wasteland Nature Walk

On Tuesday morning, Ida the dog and I walked down the hill our house sits on into the valley below.  The hill is shale, fill, bits of blown in trash and a blanket of Japanese Knotweed in the summer but the knotweed is just sprouting up now.  The land isn't a lush forest or a healthy meadow, but it is supporting life nonetheless.  The plants growing along our walk are mostly opportunists.  Weeds, if you will, or extremely invasive species (Japanese Knotweed).

As much as I know we will have to battle the knotweed over this coming year, to keep it from stampeding into our yard and growing up into our electric poultry fence, I also enjoy its beauty.  Love your enemies, right?  At this stage, it looks like burly asparagus.  Its fall flowers are white and delicate and the bees like them.  Brought to this country as an ornamental, it is extrememely hard to eradicate once it establishes itself, usually on disturbed soil.  A forest of knotweed can grow from a small 2" piece of root, accidentally transported.  I think of it as The Northern Kudzu.

This is what we saw growing on our misty morning walk down the hill and back up to home.

Not sure what this is.  

Chickweed

Pink Dogwood, Locusts, and Pitch Pine on a hillside of shale, fill, and knotweed.

Mucho Garlic Mustard.  

Garlic Mustard.  Edible and Invasive.

Wild Violets

Stinging Nettle

Dooker's Hollow

The understory growth before the Japanese Knotweed takes over.   The brown stalks in the foreground are the dead knotweed from last year.  The new stalks are just now emerging.

Stonecrop on a rocky outcropping

Our house (white, in the middle) from below the Knotweed Forest

(Wild?) Currant

Blocks from a garage foundation that slid down the hill.

Currant growing out of a rock.

Young Knotweed shoots.

Cleaver.

Knotweed and Garlic Mustard.  An invasive bouquet. 

Crocuses are Blooming.

For about 2 weeks, crocuses have been blooming.

Dogwoods and dandelion are blooming and asparagus spears are poking up. Its that special time of spring. In the garden, we are mowing and turning under the cover crops that have grown since the fall (hairy vetch and winter rye). Then we will cover with newspaper and compost until planting time, giving the organic matter time to break down and feed the soil. I planted an apple tree (Pink Lady) last weekend. Will give her a photo shoot soon. Happy spring everyone!

Its 70 degrees!

Garlic is up in full force as the picture shows and lettuce, spinach, cilantro, and more that overwintered at Garden Dreams is full grown and hiding under row cover to beat the heat!

This weekend it was in the 70s and I was able to look in on our two beehives. Spotted the queen in Hive A as we call it, waddling around doing her thing and lots of healthy brood and young bees to prove she has been hard at work. I didn't see the queen in Hive B, but saw plenty of proof that she was hard at work as well. Both hives are bringing in orange, yellow, and green pollen from maple, weeds, and whatever else they can find that is blooming. And boy are they finding it...as I watched them this morning they were bringing in huge loads. Very cool.