My wife set up the folding table, the plastic trays, the grow lights, and sorted through all her seeds. That’s a sure sign of spring. Soon green shoots will pop out of peat cups, and in two months, they’ll go into the ground.
The next day, she was out there turning over the dirt in the raised beds. Their level had sunk as organic matter composted, so I bought more dirt.
All I know of her vegetable gardening plans is that there will be fewer zucchini plants and we will try to find a red pepper with a shorter growing season. We don’t have enough the long, hot days to get good peppers. Last year, they were ripening right when it started to get cold.
I’m sure I don’t have to tell serious gardeners about this, but the powers that be adjusted the zone table to accommodate climate change. As a result, you may be a warmer zone than you once were. Our “last frost” date got pushed back by ten days, yet two years ago, we had a frost that would have been a week after the new frost date. Just goes to show you, your local microclimate means more than any map. This is why you need to get your hands in the dirt and gain some experience. You don’t want your first try at raising food to be when you are dependent on it. Gardening, like many other things, looks easy until you try it and fail. If you want gardening to look easy, you’ll need experience, know-how, and a little luck.
The Bees are Awake
Our bees are not only flying, they are bringing in light yellow pollen. I find this surprising as I don’t know its source. Maybe they are traveling down the mountain to a warmer altitude. In any case, I was out on the deck this weekend, watching them zoom back and forth as they went from the hives to the open feeder I placed on the opposite end of our property. They have their choice of pollen replacement and sugar water and are ignoring the pollen substitute in favor of the one-to-one water. That means they are finding pollen in the wild.
The next day, I opened my hives for the first time in 2024. Five of the six were alive and well, with most showing six to eight frames of bees, which I considered a strong showing for early March. The dead hive was unusual. There were no dead bees in there; it looks to me like they absconded, probably late last year. I wonder if the queen died in the fall, and the other bees just found their way into other hives.
I dug into each of the hives the first week of November and pulled out the strips of mite treatment I had inside. So this hive was alive then. I guess it is possible that I rolled or crushed the queen when handling frames and didn’t realize it. It’s also possible she just died of old age and it was the wrong time of year to make a replacement queen because here were no fresh eggs.
That’s one dead out in each of the past three years. I can live with that.
Firewood Processing
We used the warm weather to split and stack more firewood. I worked at it two days and my wife helped on one. We are no longer burning wood daily, but when it gets chilly, we light a fire in the evening. Even when the daytime temps reach 60°F, it drops into the 40s and night and I see the threat of snow flurries in our distant forecast. Spring may be here, but winter will still show its hand from time to time.
Although I hate to count my eggs before they hatch, our supply of firewood continues to hold up well. This is our fourth winter here; I may have finally stockpiled the right amount to get through the winter.
More Signs of Spring
Just last week, I said we had not seen any robins yet. On Sunday morning, I saw two on the neighbor’s property, no doubt harbingers of more to come. That night, the dog was looking upward, so I swung my light up and spotted a bat. That’s a first for this early in the year. There would be no bats if there were no insects. Speaking of insects, my wife found a tick crawling on her this Saturday. I can’t believe they are out already.
I guess Punxsutawney Phil was right.
