Posted on Apr 27, 2014 7:23 PMAt my age it is inconceivable that I could not wait for Spring 2014 to arrive. But the older I get, the more I dislike bitterly cold weather, and the more I seek out the best parts of the year. The 'best' parts for me are any day above 50 degrees Fahrenheit with sunshine, and lots of it and no Arctic winds! With this said, I plan for this post to be primarily a record of daily activities so as to keep tabs of what happened & when. (Something like a gardening diary of sorts.) Since I am beginning late in April some of these dates & times might not be in order exactly as happened. So with that said here goes: Spring growth is beginning even with below normal temperatures as illustrated in these pictures. We have had several hard freezes this month with heavy frosts, placing our gardening endeavors at least three or more weeks behind last year.
April 10, Thursday: Shopped at the farm store. Bought onion plants, onion sets & fertilizer. Picked up 6 baby chicks. Set up brooder in garage.
April 11, Friday: Outdoor work entire day: Continued cleaning perennial beds, organizing power equipment such as lawn mower, garden tiller, removed snow blade from Ford lawn tractor, applied fertilizers and Preen herbicide over iris beds. Ran garden tiller and more. Cleaned & worked on perennial beds. Applied 12-12-12 to all perennials + around shrubs. Did a test burn in one iris bed that had not been cleaned from last year. Several oak leaves, plant debris & assorted stems were still in this bed. I am in hopes this will kill off any iris borer larvae that might have over-wintered on iris leaves and/or debris. However, I still use a granular insecticide to help with control.
April 12, Saturday: Planted Kennebec potatoes, Candy & Big Daddy onions and onion sets for salad onions/green onions. Roto-tilled sandy/loam areas of vegetable gardens & staked out rows. Forecasts are predicting snow by Tuesday morning, April 15th with a fall in temperature to 29 degrees Fahrenheit. The photos posted above are from, Sunday April 13, 2014. It is said a picture is worth a thousand words: Maybe these will explain what they are in relation to new growth. The chicks' pictures below were from Saturday, April 12, 2014.
April 14, Monday: First mowing of 2014 (about two weeks later than usual).
April 25/26 Friday & Saturday: All outdoor work both days. Tilled all garden spaces; Planted Texas Legend onions, Crimson Giant radishes, Mixed Salad Lettuces & Walla Walla Onions. Spot weeded in all perennial beds, notably dandelions & Chickweed which had wintered over. It seems we might have two families of Bluebirds nesting here this year. Below are some pictures of one of the males occupying one of the nesting sites farthest from the house. The last picture is nearest the house where we have another nesting box. Time will tell the full story.
April 28 Monday: Adverse weather: High East winds; Driving Rains; No outdoor work. Errand list completed in town early. Company on & off all day mostly neighbors & kids until 7:00 pm. Tornadoes & severe weather in AR & MS: Very bad news in those states! Condolences go out to folks in AR, MS & AL: Many deaths & losses reported today in those states..
April 29 Tuesday: Gorgeous start this morning; Winds calm, temp 65°F, & lots of sunshine! No running around today, only outdoors work. Cleaned chicks' bedding & released them into outside pen with feeder & fresh water. Worked out all day up to 4:00 pm when the wind got so bad I had to move the chicks into the garage brooder. Did a lot of weeding; planted a White Rose Of York cutting and a peach tree seedling from my own tree. Cleaned twigs, pine cones & debris in preparation for next mowing. Below are some pictures from today; the first shows wind blowing soil across my neighbor's corn field. The second is of "Glory Of The Snow" (Scilla forbesii); Third is a Grape Hyacinth (Muscari botryoides); & Lastly a Greigii Tulip 'Pinocchio' (Tulipa greigii). So, with this edition of daily events it appears Spring 2014 is well underway! (Compare this with the scenes in the Blog Article below!
April 30 Wednesday: I realize the title of this post says 'Spring At Last', but I am beginning to wonder if warm weather has forgotten to arrive this year. The day began mild enough with partial sun; However this began to degrade into clouds, strong winds and cooler temps as the day wore on. We had let the chicks out for a few hours to forage and exercise, but returned them to the brooder when they showed signs of stress from the wind. There was not much outdoor work today except for a few weeds pulled and picking up twigs & sticks from the winds. Here are the chicks before they were returned to their brooder.
To Be Continued
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