It’s Spring…ish. Sometimes.
It is starting to feel like spring, some times, in central Massachusetts. Today was nice. Yesterday we had snow flurries. Tomorrow is most likely going to be mostly okay; Sunday is still a toss up between possible light showers and a hurricane.
I know the good weather will eventually stick around, so I am starting to get the 2021 Food It Yourself garden together. I have started sprouting things. That tiny little green thing you see to the left is a chamomile sprout. Specificially, it is a Roman chamomile sprout. German chamomile makes a more sorporific tea, but Roman chamomile makes a superior ground cover. I have finally roto-tilled all the grass in the most-tricky-to-mow part of my lawn. I will reserve part of that ground for front yard tomatoes. (There will be sunflowers, zinnias, and marigolds, too. We don’t want the neighbors to complain, do we?) The rest will be chamomile. I hope. Much can happen between sprout and planting time; we have almost a month before planting time. I remain hopeful.
All the other seedlings are looking good, too. Those floppy things are mammoth sunflowers. I will ask Mr. Food It Yourself to prop them up with bamboo skewers. The rest are zucchini, yellow summer squash, pumpkins, and cucumbers. It fills me with hope to see so much growth!
More positive news-I arrived home from work a few weeks ago to find my fruit salad tree had arrived! I ordered it last year, but it was back-ordered from the nursery. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept, a fruit salad tree has peach, apricot, plum, and nectarine all grafted on to a single (in this case dwarf) root stock. Those fruits are all so closely related, it works. I am excited for this addition to our Foodscape. (Yeah, that’s what they are calling it these days.) Even with the 3ish inches of snow we had after I planted it, it is still looking good.
And speaking of fruit, Pear Kun (the multi-variety pear tree I planted last spring) is thriving.
Look at all those blooms! Now look at how I removed them all, leaving only the leaves. Yes, it seems extreme. Yes, I feel like a horrible monster. However, look at how thin the branches still are. They cannot support fruit just yet. The tree needs to focus on producing roots for another few years before I let it put energy into fruit. Fruit trees are all about the long game.
New England is known for weather patterns that do not make sense. I try to remember that Springtime is a state of mind, not a range of days on the calendar. I am certainly feeling springy. What season are you feeling right now? How does that express itself in your DIYet? Share in the comments section.
