Spring has Sprung!

The weather has settled down and is more or less normal for this time of year and the gardens are responding with wild abandon.  Leaves and flowers are budding, the birds are getting frisky and butterflies, bees and other insects are visiting the flowers.

Today I planted Blue Lake and Kentucky Wonder green beans to go with the Asparagus Beans I planted last week.  I also planted the following chiles: Costeno Amarillo, Red Bell, Datil, Cubanelle, Aji Limon and Chiltepin.

The fruit trees and grape vines are really looking good, but the Anna and Ein Shemer apples aren't on the same bloom schedule even though I planted the Ein Shemer specifically to cross-pollinate the Anna.  The Ein Shemer is just now blooming and the Anna is already at the stage where I'm culling the fruits to increase the mature size.

Anna apples after being culled.

Ein Shemer blooms about to open.

The weather hasn't been as windy as it has in years past and most of the nectarine blossoms have stayed on the tree, so maybe this year I'll finally get a crop.

Nectarine blossom being visited by a honeybee.

Hopefully this nectarine will reach full size.

The grapevines are loaded with the beginnings of fruit clusters.

The Eureka lemon is blooming and there's still a chance I'll get fruit this year.

The flowers have been showing their appreciation for the nice weather as well, with healthy growth and even some blooms.  Last year's hollyhock has done more than survive, it's thrived and on the 18th was nearly 5' tall with 12 flower stalks; today it's 6' tall and the first flowers have opened, though they're hard to see as they're lower on the stalks and hidden among the leaves.

5' tall

First hollyhock blooms of the year.

The salvias have recovered from the freeze; the red salvia is already in bloom and the blue, Salvia nemorosa, has buds the should open tomorrow or the day after.

Red salvia growing in the rose garden.

Salvia nemorosa ready to bloom.

A couple of the succulents in the wheelbarrow garden have decided to bloom as well, one of them being the basketball plant, Euphobia obesa, which it turns out has male and female plants, with mine being female.  I'm trying to find more specimens in the hope of getting at least one male plant.

Euphobia obesa in bloom.

Another succulent bloom.

The rosemary, moss rose and petunias all self-sowed last year and seedlings are beginning to grow.  I planted some poppy seeds provided by my friend Marie Niemann and noticed today that they've started to sprout.

Poppies coming up.

I also managed to get one of the amaryllis seeds to sprout and it's been planted in a small pot in my office where I can baby it for the next three years until it blooms.

Amaryllis seedling.

The ginger I planted from a piece I bought at the oriental market last year is starting to come out of it's slumber, the glads are now over a foot tall and the planter with the lavender and petunias is filling out nicely.

Ginger is greening up.

Glads are reaching for the sky.

Spanish lavender and petunias

Least we forget the importance of good bugs in the garden, here's a ladybug and a spiderweb I found recently (the web's builder was no where in sight).

Ashy Gray Ladybug, Olla v-nigrum.  

Spiderweb spun between two hanging planters on the back porch.

Update for W/E 3/14/13

Weird weather appears to be the new normal, as last Friday the 8th, we had 1.46" of rain, winds that destroyed all but one of my neighbor's sunflowers and two separate hail storms while the temperature struggled to reach 54, and then the last two days have set record highs of 95 and 97.  Despite the weather, things are getting done around Dove Manor and today I finished building and planting the raised potato bed.  Like the other raised beds, this one is made out of cedar fence boards and lined with weed block fabric, but it's larger than the others @ 47" x 51", or nearly 16 square feet.  I filled it with 7 cubic feet of topsoil, planted 3 lbs of seed potatoes, then covered them with 3 more cubic feet of topsoil.  As the plants begin to come up, I'll add more topsoil to encourage more potato production.  The bed will get afternoon shade, even in the height of summer, so the potatoes should have time to mature without worrying about the soil getting too hot.

The bed ready to be filled

The potatoes ready to be covered

Room for another 5-6 cubic feet of topsoil as the plants develop

I also added some color to the front yard with a large pot filled with 3 lavender plants and 18 petunias in 3 different complementary colors.  I had to fight the bees off at the garden center when I bought the lavender this morning, so they should attract plenty of pollinators to my garden.

When making my rounds this afternoon, I noticed that the eureka lemon is forming flower buds, so maybe there will be some fruit to harvest after all.  I also saw the first swallowtail of the year flitting from blossom to blossom on the nectarine tree, so I guess it's a good thing I didn't cut it down after all.

Signs of Spring

Signs of Spring are all around me, from the courtship dances of the birds to plants coming out of their winter slumber.  The various species of doves are beginning to try out their pickup lines at the singles bar otherwise known as the backyard feeders, the Anna's Hummingbird's are singing in hopes of attracting a single gal, as are the Curve-billed Thrashers and I saw the first White-winged Dove in months today.

In the garden, the grapes are starting to leaf out and the nectarine, which I've decided not to cut down, is beginning to bloom.  The Anna apple is in full bloom and even has a few small apples on it, but the Ein Shemer that I bought to cross-pollinate the Anna still hasn't even begun to bloom.  

I planted another 140+ gladioli yesterday and the ones I planted last month are already coming up.  I have around 250 glads in 15 different varieties (new varieties to my garden this year are indicated by an '*':  Black Forest*;  Blue Lagoon*; Comet*; Early Bird; Fiorentina; Firecracker; Flowersong; Grande Passsion*; Lavender; My Love*; Peter Pears; PlumTart; Sun Kissed*; Superstar and Traderhorn.

Four out of the five tomato varieties I planted back on January 28 have finally come up and the last one should sprout soon.

Lastly, the petunia that self-sowed has bloomed and revealed itself for all to see.

Catching Up With February

It's been almost a month since my last post, the longest I've ever gone between posts as a matter of fact.  The main reason for this was my bum left knee, first the limited ability to do things in the garden due to the torn cartilage, and then the recovery from surgery on the 12th to repair the tear.  I spent a few days on crutches, then back to using a cane, but for the past week I've been getting around for the most part without any walking aid at all.  I'm actually planning on working on the yard tomorrow, it feels that good.

The weather this month has been really unpredictable, 70's one week, 50's the next, rainy then sunny and we even had graupel (precipitation that forms when supercooled droplets of water are collected and freeze on a falling snowflake, forming a 2-5 mm ball of rime) on the 20th.  It fell for about 10-15 minutes, blanketing everything in white, and it was late enough in the day that there was still some on the ground in the morning.

Our dog, Wrigley, doesn't know what to make of all the white stuff.

Birding action has continued and I found these cool triple tube feeders at Wal-Mart on clearance for $5 each, so I snapped up a couple; they make feeding less of a chore, as they hold enough seed to last 2-3 days. 

I also used the last of the salvaged newel posts and a plastic pot tray to make another platform feeder.

A new bird was added to the list, bringing the total to 19 species; the new one is a female Pyrrhuloxia, Cardinalis sinuatus, a member of the cardinal family only found in parts of AZ, NM and TX.

The gray beak distinguishes the Pyrrhuloxia from its' more common cousin.

I got this shot of a male Anna's Hummingbird at the feeder from about 10' away.

Despite the unsettled, if not downright weird weather, some things continue to bloom or are starting to do so.

Amaryllis 'Minerva' bloomed again, this time a single stalk with seven blossoms.

Snapdragons have bloomed almost all winter.

My neighbor's sunflowers make me wish I'd planted sooner.

The Anna apple is already in bloom.

Some plants from last year self-seeded and others are being propagated from cuttings.

Petunias that self-seeded.

Rosemary did as well.

Blue Moon and Climbing America rose cuttings.

Stapelia gigantea and Orbeopsis malananthus cuttings.

Despite losing about a third of the Eureka lemon to the freeze last month, it's showing signs of recovery and there's hope for the future, although this year's crop may fail, as it was just beginning to bloom when the freeze hit and I'm not sure if it will bloom at all now.

Finally, I found a listing for free used brick and wound up with lots of other goodies as well, including a bunch of garden stakes, 2 bags of diatomaceous earth and a mason bee block that should have 80-100 bees in it.  Mason bees don't build hives or produce honey, but they are excellent pollinators and are non-aggressive, as they don't have a stinger.

Bee block hanging on my shed, facing south so that they will emerge sooner to pollinate the gardens.