The weather is bouncing me around, have me revel in the warmth and the worry in the cold — for my plants, fruit trees and bushes in or nearing bloom, leas sprouting. Note to myself: Do not plant peas on St. Patrick’s day next year.
Gardening leads me down an historical road, with Lady Petre pear, the first pear to originate in America; and then down a road to the future, with visions of my limber pine seedling one day yielding delicious pine nuts.
I’m about to give up on jasmine; can anybody help me? But I think I got growing cardoon (for flowers) and winter lettuce down.
GRAFTING WORKSHOP, APRIL 9, 2016, Springtown Farmden, New Paltz, NY, www.leereich.com/workshops LECTURE: LUSCIOUS LANDSCAPING, WITH FRUITS, APRIL 16, 2016, Hamilton College Arboretum, Clinton, NY PRUNING WORKSHOP, MAY 6-8, 2016, Omega Institute, Rhinebeck, NY DRIP IRRIGATION WORKSHOP, MAY 14, 2016, Phillies Bridge Farm Project, New Palts, NY, register at www.leereich.com/workshops PLANT SALE, MAY 21, 2016, Springtown […]
Nice, sunny days and outside I go, to prune. Three steps to pruning blueberries. Cold weather, and inside I go, sowing seeds and trying for very early, greenhouse cucumbers.
Finally, my decades-long quest has ended; I have seen the blue poppy. Now I’ll try again to grow this plant, which collapses in hot summer weather.
I take a few cells (actually, short lengths of stem) from some pear trees for cloning into whole new trees. And then, on the other side of the farmden. Arnold’s Promise surprises me with blossoms — again!
Early spring greens are coming out in full force — in the greenhouse — without any help from me. Most abundant is claytonia but there’s plenty of mâche, my favorite, and too much chickweed, which I don’t eat, but could.
I decide to do something about the climate, the microclimate, to prevent fruit plants from blossoming too early. In the cool basement, a potted ‘Pakistan’ mulberry is the first of the subtropicals to act like winter’s over.
