Easter Weekend

Happy Easter!

Daffodils are blooming, and crocuses, lungworts, magnolias ... It's definitely spring!!
The buds on the fruit trees are also swelling and moving at a scary speed.
   Scary because it is early April and we know cold weather will return and likely frosts too. As the buds advance they become more susceptible to frost damage, and the real possibility of a crop loss.
   Scary because there is so much spring work to do in the orchards, greenhouse & market garden, and not enough time to get it done. At least that's the way it feels!
Spring is always a heady time anyways - an early spring especially so. Such a joy to be out in the fresh air & warm sunshine, watching the trees & plants come to life, hearing the birds singing (the killdeer returned the other week already, and I chased a bluebird around the farm just to watch that brilliant blue!), and smelling the soil as it warms up.
Those first warm days are hard on the body, as it adjusts to the heat and being pushed harder & longer. Even the machinery seems to react to spring - but not always in a good way. Almost as if it resents being brought out of winter storage and made to work again. I won't begin to list details of break downs already experienced this spring ...
   Yesterday I argued, pleaded, and fought with the rototiller - willing it to start so I could work the ground and plant some seeds. Eventually there was success and I was able to seed snow peas, spinach, lettuce, onion sets, beets and some asian greens.

The peaches got sprayed with copper for leaf curl & some other diseases and I even disced the open ground to let the coming spring rains soak in better.

Spring is definitely here - ready or not!