Planting Time Again

This year, we haven't had much of a spring. We jumped right into summer even though summer is still officially a month away. As the days got into the 80s and then into the 90s, I thought about planting my garden but I resisted the temptation. The average last frost date for our area is around May 15. Last spring there was a late killing frost that devastated a lot of delicate plants. I didn't want to risk it this year. I kept to my conservative schedule that has worked well for me over the last ten years.

Let's get this party started!

Step one was to start some seeds indoors. I did this on April 18. It wasn't a big year for seed starting. I decided to take the easy way and purchase my tomatoes and peppers from the local nursery. All I really planned to start were some herbs. I used Jiffy starter pellets (love them!) and my long-used starter trays to plant three cells each of parsley, thyme, and basil. And since I had the whole grow light set-up going, I checked the viability of some seeds. We had some old adzuki beans lying around that I added to the tray (spoiler: not a single one sprouted). We also had some seeds that we had saved from a Long Pie pumpkin given to my husband by a coworker some years ago and some One Too Many pumpkin seeds I took from our fall decor purchased at a local farm stand. Side note: I got some gorgeous mums from the same stand so I plan on making the effort to get more this fall. I planted three each of the pumpkins and one of each grew. 

Two out of six ain't bad, I guess.

Step two was to directly sow the cool weather seeds. (cool weather, ha!) I did this on April 27. I put in peas, beets, carrots, chard, arugula, and baby pak choi. As of today, the pak choi and arugula are going like gang busters. I have about half a dozen pea plants, a few more tiny chard plants, and maybe a dozen beets slowly growing. The carrots are non-existent. That's probably because of the age of the seeds. They were from 2018 but I figured I'd try anyway. Oh well. A few dill plants seeded themselves. As for the perennials, the chives are doing beautifully, as always, the asparagus is producing faster than we can eat it, and the rhubarb is thriving after I split it. I finally got enough in one harvest to make a full pie rather than just a tart.

Our version of cooling the rhubarb pie on the windowsill.

So, that brings us to step three. I planted the rest of the garden today. I always like to plant on Memorial Day weekend. Step 3a was transplanting our seedlings. Along with my nine herb plants, two pumpkins, and five Greek basil cuttings propagated by my husband, we had a beefsteak tomato, a grape tomato, a tomatillo, and a pepperoncini pepper purchased from one of our local nurseries. (I was a bit disappointed when I saw the plants were brought into the nursery from a larger company but it was still supporting a small business.)

We gave the young 'uns a week of hardening off before putting them out into the big world.

I've always heard that pumpkins resent being transplanted. I'm not sure how true that is. The last time I tried starting pumpkins indoors then planting them out, crows found the seedlings within a day and tore them out of the ground. If I was a pumpkin, I'd probably resent that. I'm hoping our big guys will settle into the garden well this year.

Come on buddy! Think happy thoughts!

Step 3b is putting in the seeds. This year I planted my usual round of beans (purple, turtle, and rattlesnake), as well as, zucchini, cucumbers, parsnips, and daikon. I put in more peas as well to fill out the row and tried my version of a three sisters garden with strawberry popcorn, the long pie pumpkin, and rattlesnake beans all in the same bed together.

If you look carefully you can see the beans below the twine and the red popcorn in the foreground. And don't forget the pumpkin lurking in the back.

So, there it is. The garden is in! I patted the seeds and told them to "do their duty." Then we watered them in and did a little rain dance so it would rain this afternoon. (It did but not yet as much as I would have liked so far.) I'm looking forward to see how everything grows!

And now on to the obligatory critter shots. Here is a rabbit chilling next to our house.

We had to make some repairs to the fence to keep the bunnies out of the garden this year. I know we've let them have babies there for several years (see here and here and here too) but the inn is now closed. So, we added a layer of chicken wire around the bottom of the fence where the rabbits had been getting in. It doesn't keep the chipmunks out but we seem to be bunny-free so far. (knock on wood!)

Notice how the black mesh is neatly chewed off to allow bunny entrance.

 And finally, here's a baby bird in our cedars.

Maybe a baby cardinal?

 

An Update on the Birds

On July 4, I wrote about the multiple birds that were nesting in our hedge. I thought I’d share a little update about how they turned out.

The mourning doves had a particularly successful brood. They made very little noise until they outgrown the nest. Then, we could hear them crashing through the branches of the cedar as they were figuring out their wings. I don’t know how many eggs were laid in this clutch, but I was able to get a picture of three nearly-grown birds hanging out by the nest.

Three mourning doves

The robins, on the other hand, had a bad time of things. Well, perhaps not bad, but completely unsuccessful. The female robin sat the next for some time but nothing came of it. Anytime someone went near the next she would fly off making quite a racket. It makes sense that she would try to draw whatever intruder away. That was so different from the nearly-silent doves. By the end of July, it appears that the robins had abandoned the nest. I found a broken egg on the driveway under the lilac bush.

Broken robin egg

The real stars of our little bird show were the cardinals. While Mr. Tomato was continuing to take care of the chicks in the nest by the driveway, the Mrs. began sitting another nest across the yard. We watched a lot of comings and goings from both sides as the pair raised two broods. Just this week we’ve seen both sets of junior cardinals out exploring. Junior, a bird from the first nest, is almost entirely fledged out with adult colors while the Junior Juniors (I've seen three together at once) from the second nest is still has some baby down. They like to sing and play in the evenings just as the light is fading so I haven’t been able to get many photos but I did catch one of the Junior Juniors the other day.

Junior Junior cardinal

As a country girl, I never expected to get to enjoy so much wildlife in my suburban backyard.

Who's that checking out our garden?

It's one of the twins!

Sun Bunnies

Rabbits are notorious for letting the air out of tires.

Backyard Birds

We have a mixed hedge of cedar and laurel with some lilac mixed in that runs along the south side of our driveway. It is, apparently, a very attractive home to nesting birds. This spring a pair of grackles built a nest high in the cedars. Once hatched, the little birds made quite a racket, especially when one of the parents swooped in bringing food. It was really nice watching and listening to the little creatures, hoping that they would grow up healthy and strong.

Grackle with something yummy (maybe) for its chicks

On May 22, I saw a little gray bird hopping in the grass near the garden. My first thought was, “Oh no. The little guy fell out of the nest. I wonder if it can fly well enough to at least get off the ground and away from predators.” There are some neighborhood cats that I’m sure would have loved to pounce on the fledgling. But then I saw two more little birds on the fence nearby and knew that they were our little grackles on their first trip away from the nest. They all could fly (well enough) and seemed to be having a nice time exploring in and around the garden.

Such sweet little things!

I thought that was it for our little rookery. The babies had flown and it was now getting into late June. But then about a week ago, I saw a robin with its beak filled with twigs and bits of dried grass. It kept flying into one of the lilac bushes among the laurels so I decided to check it out. Sure enough, the robin was building a nest just high enough to be above my reach. Not that I wanted to reach the nest. We just always joke that robins are not the best at picking safe spots for nests. I remember as a child looking down into a nest of peeping mouths when a pair of robins had built their nest in the bucket of my father’s backhoe.

Robins' nest in a lilac just above my head

The robin had a problem, though, beyond the relative low height of the nest. A pair of cardinals had also chosen that section of the hedge in which to build a nest. There were a couple of bird fights in the driveway and it appeared that the cardinals were victorious. Three days ago we started to hear very small voices coming from the hedge. Today, those voices are much louder. We hear them frequently as Mr. and Mrs. Tomato-head dart in and out of the hedge to feed their babies. I wanted to get some pictures of the pair but they are always on the move. It sounds like there are at least two, if not three or more, chicks to feed so they have been kept very busy.

Mr. Tomato-head earlier in the summer before the responsibilities of parenthood

When I first heard the tiny peeping voices, I decided to try to locate the nest. I ducked my head into the hedge and took a look around. Lo and behold, there it was, on the left up in the cedars. I took a couple of photos and bragged to my husband about how I had found the cardinals’ nest. There was one problem, though. When I took a closer look at the photos, I discovered it was not the cardinals’ nest. It was that of a dove.

Surprise, its a doves' nest

Closeup of the nest - someone's looking at me!

What a delightful surprise! Of course, it should not have been that big of a surprise. A couple weeks earlier we had the opportunity to witness a pair of doves having fun sexy time on the roof of our garage. I managed to get a few photos as they were basking in post-coital bliss.

Mrs. Dove

Mr. Dove

I was still curious about the location of the cardinals’ nest, however. So, I ducked back into the hedge and looked around again when the Mrs. was visiting the nest. I was able to pinpoint the nest that time, though it was really difficult to get a good picture of it. I did get another surprise, though. A robin went flying off of its nest (the one I thought had been abandoned) and proceeded to chirp me a new one for disturbing it. So, it looks as though we have three pairs of birds sharing a fairly small space in our hedge. It’s like we’re running an avian maternity ward.

There is a cardinal nest in there, I swear!

Robin's just a little grumpy after I disturbed it.

General locations of the birds' nests in our hedge

Where's Winter?

It has been a very odd winter. It snowed a bit then it got warm then it rained then it got warmer (68 degrees on Christmas Eve day!) then it snowed a little again then it got cold (about 7 degrees, so not really cold) and now it’s warm and raining again. The other day I actually saw a forsythia bush blossoming! Sheesh. I wish the weather would make up its mind.

A little frosty

Just a bit of snow

The snow blower anxiously awaiting snow

Our house has a nice little fireplace. Unfortunately it has been rare to have a day cold enough this season to warrant a fire. There were a couple of cold evenings, though, when we could have a fire. There’s nothing like sitting in front of a glowing fireplace, watching the dancing flames, soaking up the heat. We’ve found a combination of pressed wood “logs” and actual wood make a nice balance of heat and flames.

So many pretty colors: oranges...

...purple and yellow...

...pinks and reds.

This fall my husband took down a couple of trees in the back yard to use for firewood. While it’s far too green to burn this year, it should be very nice for next winter. I grew up with a variety of wood-fueled heat sources. By the time the first snow fell, the cellar was filled with firewood. Row upon row would be stacked from floor to ceiling. I never cared for the creepy-crawlies that would come out of the wood, though the tiny pocket snake was rather cute. Still, I’m glad our home-cut firewood is stacked out in the garage.

The pile waiting for next year

Some nice cherry and locust wood

We finally put the bird feeder out for the season. Normally, we wait until there is snow on the ground but who knows when that’s going to be. The chickadees found the feeder within minutes. I love chickadees! Soon after that, a titmouse showed up. Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal now frequent the feeder along with a tiny wren. A small flock of finches stops by on occasion as well. I love watching the birds and it’s much easier to get photos of them when they come to you. Of course the bird seeds have also attracted Tubby McSquirrel and his friends but if I want to feed the birds, I have to host the squirrels as well.

A chickadee being tall

A titmouse and chickadee sharing the feeder

Squirrel!

It just doesn’t feel like winter without the snow. Sure, the wind is cold and the trees are bare but the grass is still oddly green. I enjoy the snow. That’s why I still live in New York State. I get tired of it after a while but it just doesn’t feel like winter without a white blanket over everything. The snow will come. I’m sure of that. Until then, I’ll just have to look back at pictures from winters when we lived on the mountain.

Looking back at winter in 2009 in the Adirondacks