April Ice Storm

Ice-covered flowering pear tree

This morning, we looked out to find that everything was covered in a quarter-inch layer of ice.  Every flower, every wire, every blade of grass was encased.  My flowering pear tree, which had been looking so lovely with the most flowers it's ever had, was weighted down so that the branches curved to the ground. 

March in the Garden

Leaf lettuce

This is a photo of the leaf lettuce I planted in my little plastic green-house back in December.  It's taken it a lot longer than a late spring planting outside normally would to get rolling, but now I've got plenty of fresh mixed greens for myself and my bunnies.

More March Flowers

Yellow Daffodil

Over the last week, it's been a delight to watch the spring flowers continue to bloom.  A few weeks ago, it was the dwarf iris, snowdrops, and crocus, now it's the daffodils and hyacinths that are coming into their season. Pansies have been blooming throughout.

Winter Flowers

Dwarf iris re-emerging from the snowdrifts

The day before the winter storm came, I saw some of my dwarf iris just starting to bloom for the year.  Then they were covered by over a foot of snow, plus all of that shoveled from the drive next to them.  As the snow finally melted off in the last couple of days, there they were again, and in greater numbers than before.

I was so glad to see that the crushing weight of all that snow hadn't stopped these pretty little flowers from providing their annual show.  They are always among the very first flowers to come up and bloom each year, generally just after the snowdrops, and I would have hated to miss them. This year, they even beat the snowdrops, as those flowers are still under snow. 

Snow Days

Snowy bird bath

The winter storm system that just blew through Kansas gave us more than wind and cold.  We actually got snow this time, and lots of it!  Our official total here for this storm was 14.2 inches. 

I've read that 10 inches of snow melts down to the equivalent of one inch of rain. That makes this snow enough to do some good, but won't come anywhere close to making up for the drought.

Winter Sowing

Getting ready for winter sowing.

Today I started planting my garden for the summer--way earlier for outdoor planting than I would have ever thought possible before!  Over the last several months, I'd run into mention of "winter sowing" using plastic milk jugs like tiny greenhouses, and found fascinating descriptions of this method of starting plants.  It is supposed to avoid the all-too-prevalent problem of damping off, and gives the gardener seedlings with healthy root systems that do not need to be hardened off before planting.  I decided to try it for myself.

Early December in the Garden

I got a bit done in the garden over the weekend, as the temps on Saturday were pretty pleasant.  We'd had a tiny bit of rain Friday evening, though not enough to really do much.  I checked on the garden square I've been keeping sheltered under plastic.  The peas are struggling, but the parsley seems to be doing fairly well. I clipped a handful of it for the bunnies, who were delighted to munch on that in addition to their lettuce.

In the next raised square, I had set up a wind break on the north side.  The lettuce there is still not completely gone, though the cold nights have been hard on it.  But I am still able to harvest a few leaves along on most mornings for the bunnies, as well as carrot tops.

I also opened the greenhouse up for a bit to air out, and watered the plants inside.  Since it is only a single layer of plastic, and unheated, the plants inside are not kept that much warmer than outside, but it does make a difference.  The parsley, mint, and strawberries are doing best at this point.  The lettuce I'd planted in one large pot has shown no signs of growth yet. I watered everything, and sealed the greenhouse door back up before dark.