We had a couple of absolutely lovely 60+ degree days last week. I can finally access the garden again, and the snow in the yard is mostly gone except from a couple really shady spots.
Course, that rapid melt means that every single waterway has burst over its banks with no prior warning. In many cases by a good 20 feet. And of course the ground in our yard went from frozen solid to swamp in the same period.
When I could finally access the garden again I was surprised to see quite a bit of green already. It looks like the combination of insulating snow and black tires kept the garden warm enough that many of the annual flowers I planted last year (for color) survived the winter (the coldest one the area has ever had) and were getting ready to bloom! Course, this means that every single weed survived too…..
Current 10 day forecast says we’re not supposed to dip below the freezing mark at all during that time period. Though we’re going to be getting a fair bit of rain instead. We don’t need more water at the moment, really. The downside to that is that every single fruit tree in the region is about to start budding. If we get a solid frost after this (which is entirely possible since normal last frost isn’t for another month at least for most of the area) its going to play havoc on the orchards.
I’m going to try growing broccoli again. I’ve got it started in pots inside with an eye towards potentially planting it under row covers in a couple weeks. Along with the Sugar Snap peas, radishes and some lettuce. The tomatoes and most of the peppers are out in the greenhouse.
I found a local farm who’ll deliver a pickup load of well aged cow manure for cheap, course, the ground’s so wet she can’t drive the pickup right to the garden like I’d hoped to be able to do. So we’ll be ferrying the lovely black dirt with hand-carts and the lawn tractor (if the lawn tractor doesn’t bog down in the mud anyway). But it should do good things for my garden, so its worth it.
Arty’s enjoying the warmer temps, while Apollo is mourning the missing snow. Arty has now completed 2 of the 3 required Qualifying runs to earn him his Barn Hunt Novice title. Hopefully he’ll get that last Q later this month at a local trial. We’ll be running Apollo for his Instinct title at the same trial, so wish me luck!