Friday, April 7, 2017

Rain comes down, plants come up


It's been a bit wet. I wish I could send this to parched Cape Town and environs, suffering from serious drought. Here in Brooklyn, in the central vegetable plot, the soil drains better than it did this time last year - I think the green manure (digging plants back into the soil) helped. The chives on the left are fat and happy. 


The garlic seems to be strong. Tulip rows are coming up, so the squirrels didn't get them all. The purple potatoes that I thought had frozen to mush after our balmy February seem to be intact. 


When we moved in here in late 2015 there were only weeds in the middle bed. Many, many weeds. On the outsides edges there were some irises (a beautiful purple), day lilies (which I divided), Solomon's seal (a plant I love, also divided), violets,  and a sprawling spirea (I took it out). Now, the bulbs I planted - muscari, fritillaria, daffodils, alliums, tulips, lily of the valley (for the Frenchman, whose town in Provence used to hold a festival for them), lilies, liatris, camassia, eremurus and even dahlias - as well perennials - columbines, foamflower (it has moved with us twice), foxgloves, thimbleweed, ostrich fern, heuchera, milkweeds, asters, agastache, salvia, monkshood - are beginning to wake up. 

The Unattractive Path flooded. If I do cover it in river gravel, the gravel will get muddy. Dilemma.


There is life in the pots, even if two of them cracked. The purple elderflower above might even bloom this year.


And I am the proud mother of a clutch of fiddleheads. I have a small flock of ostrich ferns, now, and when the fatter fiddleheads develop we'll have a small ceremonial dish of them with dinner.

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4 comments:

  1. Ah, spring! i love when the first heads start sticking up. no ideas for the ugly path ... i'd do gravel, but you're right about the mud. "Filling" it might also mean some drainage issues for beds??

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  2. It looks great, even the river path! Almost like an intermittent stream bed.

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  3. Maybe it's a moat. Do you have any tiny little boats, something like your fleet of yellow cabs, that you can launch? It is a soggy mess here in Upstate NY. It will be a while before we can dig in the garden, but we've started some seeds. Ever hopeful. That what spring's all about.

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  4. Looking forward to seeing your garden when the flowers are in bloom,they would look so beautiful.

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