April / May Mix-Up?

Mother Nature gets confused when she heads north. Our April showers are arriving in May. (April brought us lots of winter snows. Boo! Hiss!) We are still managing to get some May flowers, though, so I guess I'll forgive Mother Nature. As if she cares about me and my forgiveness. She'll continue to do as she wishes. There's not a thing I can do to stop her.

Last Monday afternoon (a week ago) was very productive for me. Many seeds were planted, starting with my three types of peas: regular, sugar snap, and Chinese pod. As I mentioned before, I'm sandwiching them between two other fences. The central section will support the pea vines. Each type of pea has its own area on that fence, and they were planted on both sides, so I can pick each type separately, assuming my plan to foil the robber birds works.

I planted all the gladiolus bulbs alongside the eastern fence, which is chicken wire. I had enough to also plant on both sides of that fence. I finished that row, to the south (but uphill) with two types of carrots. The next row to the East is fairly close, and it's planted with Swiss chard and beets. Finishing the pea row, I put in 25 hills of white potatoes. At the top of the other fence row, there are 20 hills of red potatoes. Since they'll take a while to get big, I planted a packet of radishes down the center. It's too early to plant the scarlet runner beans on the remaining fencing. Besides, I haven't yet installed the netting that will get attached there to be ready to throw over the top of the peas. I'll get there.

That Monday morning was spent in the kitchen. I'd agreed to provide desserts for the women's golf league kick-off on Tuesday. I made a batch of Mock Twix Bars as well as a batch of Breakfast Cookies. Both recipes have appeared in previous columns here. Both desserts are (mostly) compliant with the Whole Life Challenge. The Twix bars have a top layer of melted dark chocolate chips (with coconut oil), so they aren't quite kosher. But they sure are tasty and worth losing a nutrition point.

There was no gardening done Tuesday, although I did visit a greenhouse. I picked up more work: perennials for shady areas, and a couple new succulents. Those succulents are now planted in a former shallow birdbath, which will move inside next fall for the winter. I'm going to try strawberries yet again, and hope the deer won't eat them down to nothing. I bought everbearing bare roots as well as some ornamental strawberry plants: they have reddish-pink flowers.

Wednesday afternoon saw me get the first mowing of the year completed. There was a hiccup to that as Dennis managed to get the Trac stuck as he started seeding the wheat crop. I'd helped him fill the air seeder, then waited for the signal that all was working as it should before I headed home. When I stopped to empty the grass catcher bags (they filled fast as there were still lots of leaves being sucked up), he phoned to say he was stuck. He hadn't even completed an hour of seeding! And his timing was impeccable: if I hadn't stopped the mower I never would have heard the cell phone ring. We did get the Trac towed out of the wash sand (Big Bud to the rescue again) with enough time to finish the mowing. That worked well since it started raining that night.

I've enjoyed my first cutting of asparagus. I zapped all the smaller stalks (saved the larger ones to give to our daughter) with a drizzle of olive oil, chopped garlic scapes (they're coming up gangbusters), some fresh tarragon leaves, and a squeeze of fresh lemon. Delicious!

Update: while I haven't yet used any of the rhubarb, it's growing like weeds. The section under the upended flowerpot is obviously not hindered by the lack of sunlight. That pot is now showing a good 4-5" gap between the lower edge and the ground! As soon as it dries up enough that I won't get my shoes muddy, I'm going to go pull some stalks and make a batch of Polish Rhubarb drink. That will definitely be compliant as it uses honey instead of refined sugar.