Hurray! for spring!

[thistlebloom]

NO! It's rainy, dreary and downright depressing! I had to slog through mud yesterday to get my greenhouse cleaned out so I can start my seeds. 90% chance of more rain tomorrow. I have a river running through my yard, my poor chickens are up to their necks in mud and my dogs don't want to go out and do their business.

Misery loves company Joan!

 

[digitS']

Here, the temperature rises just above freezing each day and drops below freezing each night. There has been a dull sameness to the winter days. Any warmth is usually accompanied by too much wind and a smattering of rain. It was colder a month ago and some of the snow that fell around Christmas and since is still in my yard. The lengthening hours of daylight are really becoming apparent.

A few dandelions were blooming or attempting to bloom just before the cold weather of November really shut them down. I noticed a bud in my backyard the other day - right near the backsteps. I don't think it will need much more encouragement to go ahead and open up into an actual dandelion flower.

I was walking near my home yesterday and passed a home that I've often looked at as I drive by. Ten years ago and more, there were snowdrops covering the lawn on the west side of this brick home as an earliest sign of approaching spring. Then, the homeowner planted a grapevine along the west side of his corner lot. Essentially, I haven't been able to see into the yard from that side for 10 years.

Sometime last year, the owner took the grapevine out. Of course, the snowdrops are back! There aren't nearly as many and they haven't quite bloomed but you can easily recognize the small white buds rising above the still dormant grass in what is left of the lawn. I am not sure if he or she wanted the snowdrops to bloom again but the soil in completely bare within several feet of where the vines have been growing the last 10 years. Now again, the snowdrops have again found their way.

Steve

 

[Southern Gardener]

NO! It's rainy, dreary and downright depressing! I had to slog through mud yesterday to get my greenhouse cleaned out so I can start my seeds. 90% chance of more rain tomorrow. I have a river running through my yard, my poor chickens are up to their necks in mud and my dogs don't want to go out and do their business.

Misery loves company Joan!

 

[897tgigvib]

The contrast of full sunshine length in the forest is dramatic.

Those trees to the south that completely shade my garden from November to February now have the sun above them more each day.

The 32 or 35 degree morning temperatures do not seem as cold as they did in December. Body is used to it. So it would be easy to feel like spring is starting to spring. But it will, and sooner this year here than usual. Why?

I can smell it in the soil

 

[canesisters]

has spring sprung anywhere yet???

Baymule?
Hoodat?
Southern?

Was in the 60's here yesterday. Is 50 right now... and expecting a chance of flurries tomorrow... :/
I don't think spring is EVER going to get here.


I DID order my veggi seeds yesterday! Very first garden on the way - spring or no spring! I'll plant the spare bedroom floor if I have to.:tools

 

[897tgigvib]

Ha! There were a few years when I lived in Montana that over half of my living room was planted! Not quite on the floor, but I had extended from the window shelves over dressers to over the radiator, to the couch...

It can be done, but it is quite the deal with lights and shelves...

 

[canesisters]

Oh, I just figured I'd haul the compost & dirt in and toss it on the floor - with the blinds open and the light on, it should work just fine - right?

 

[digitS']

The contrast of full sunshine length in the forest is dramatic. . .

I am smiling at the thought of "sunshine length" . . Usually, we think of the opposite, length of shadows. Yes, and if you were several degrees further north, Marshall, you'd see even a quicker change in day length and "sunshine length."

We were talking the other day about Barrow, Alaska - there above the Arctic Circle. The sun didn't rise above the horizon until January 21st or something like that. Already, the length of the day in Barrow is over 6 hours long!!

. . .The 32 or 35 degree morning temperatures do not seem as cold as they did in December. Body is used to it. . . .

That is true for me. While I was hunkering down in December, I will be pruning the peach tree and burying compost (I think) in the same temperatures today. I'm not sure if that one bed that could take some of the kitchen peelings is thawed enuf to dig in. I need to get down more than 8" but it will be the first few in that "full sun" location in my yard that have to be gotten thru. I say full sun but this is likely to be another day, I won't see the sun for the clouds . . . and it will continue . . .

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

Digit, that sunshine spot on my garden, what was it, feb 4?, was very fleeting, and only a few minutes. Now there is that sunshine patch that is over a half an hour long, and then later another sunshine patch hits the north bed for a few minutes.

Each day my sunshine is longer. The shadows of those trees to the south are getting shorter.

I have some netting to put up over the east risers that took 2 of us last year, basically the only time I had any help with my garden. My help moved away so I have to calculate a new way to put it up this year. Thinking of an idea as I type while looking at it out my window...whoooey so much stitching to do!

 

[digitS']

You are talking "by the clock" with regards to "sunshine length."

Still, I like to think of it as a measurement in feet . . .

It makes me happy :coolsun.

Steve
who has had too much of this:

altho', the drops? those are just of misery rather than rain or snow.