Mornings recently have been suffused with fiery luminosity and everywhere there are signs that the plants, who feast on light, are invested in reaching out into a new season.
The kitchen window weeping Santa Rosa plum is first, this year, to blossom, though the apricot, usually first, is not far behind.
Droplets on these apricot buds are from the sprinkler - would that we were so lucky as to have had rain.
With the average last frost date still six weeks to two months away (depending on which resource you consult), a fine germination of sugar snap peas is pushing up strongly against the sun warmed, south facing front stone wall of the house. Soon there will be tendrils to (hopefully) tangle with that hog panel.
In front of the peas, the birds did leave some cereal rye seeds which have sprouted rather gratifyingly. For a while I was worried I would get no rye at all because it was looking like the sparrows thought the seeds I sowed were a sumptuous midwinter feast laid on just for them. They invited great gatherings of friends and family. I think (hope) the other rather dense sprouting green beings in this bed are Papaver somniferum (Bread seed poppies). I scattered seed rather liberally, having had poor germination experiences in this area with this variety of poppy in the past couple of years. The few weeks of bitter arctic cold in January might have had some benefits for poppy seed germination. Maybe.
Garlic is looking really good now that I’m giving it a weekly heavy watering. And yes I still need to prune that Santa Rosa plum in the background. And the Mesquite tree.
The Fava bean patch is recovering after a pack of marauding dogs tore up this area one disastrous night, leaving a wasteland of broken and uprooted plants which were already stressed by those bitterly cold January nights when the polar bears generously shared their Arctic air with us. I resowed bean seeds in the gaps, so have two different ages of Fava bean plants here now.
Three or four rainbow chard also survived the night of the demon dogs (the cursed canines also killed a cat in a nearby alley) and the ravages of frost. I’m about to make a meal of these lovely crunchy colorful leaves. Shhhhh. Don’t telll them.
Outback, potatoes are just starting to break through the earth. Looks like a Curve billed thrasher has been in the potato patch. Rascal! Pokes holes all over looking for grubs with that long curved scimitar of a beak. Leave the earthworms alone, please! The back garden is cooler and shadier, especially in winter, than the south facing front garden.
Which is why the sunny front porch is the best place to enjoy World Peace cookies with coffee on these still a tad chilly late winter (plants and birds and sky think it’s spring) mornings.
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
He who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise
From Eternity by William Blake 1757-1827
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