The morning of my last post (May 3rd), I woke up to snow falling. It snowed all that day and into the next. The snow stopped on the 4th, and then temperatures dropped to between -2 and -8 overnight. I had to bring my milk jug greenhouses inside for several nights and put extra straw on the onion patches along the driveway.
Less than a week later, we have jumped right into summer temps. Yesterday was 20 degrees. This afternoon, it is 20 degrees again. Tomorrow is forecast to be 26 degrees! The milkjug greenhouses are back outside, the onions are starting to come up, and I spotted the first sign of buds on the raspberry canes. The first dandelions of the season have appeared.
I began hardening off the transplants (mostly tomatoes and peppers, plus a few leeks, marigolds, and parsley) yesterday morning. Part of this morning was separating and repotting our rootbound and sad-looking aloe vera plants. Despite wearing sunscreen and a hat, I got a mild sunburn.
A few days ago, during the cold spell, R. spotted that the small crocus-like flowers growing in the flower bed (close to blooming) had been chewed off overnight! We assume it must have been a young deer with the munchies, though we didn't see any tracks. The anonymous nibbler was gracious enough to leave a single flower.
Update - May 19th: The nibbled bunch of flowers bounced back, better than ever. :)
Are they white flowers? That kind of looks like snowdrops that come up really, really early every spring in our yard.
ReplyDeleteI thought they were all going to be just yellow, but several more have opened and they are yellow in the center with a thick, white edge, star-shaped. I wish I could remember what they're called. R. found a package at a deeply discounted price last fall, so we planted them with a "what the heck!" attitude not knowing if the little bulbs were still viable. It's nice to see them come up (they have recovered since the nibbling incident).
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