Morels and Flowerpots

 

May is my new favorite month. Green things go from just starting to grow in April...

... to beautifully blooming in May.

I just love the crabapples, lilacs, and everything else that blooms this month!

And May is when the frost ends, so annual flowers and vegetables can be planted outdoors. Both Mike and I grew up with the tradition of spending Mother's Day purchasing and planting annuals, so we've starting doing that now with our own family, since I love flowers and the date so conveniently coincides with the average last frost. This year we also spent a day going to some Amish greenhouses in the area for the first time, and I'm so glad we did.

 

 

 

 Going to multiple nurseries and greenhouses this year, I purchased a beautiful collection of annuals that spoke to me, and then spent a day arranging them in my planters. Perhaps I could have made things a little simpler, and probably cheaper, by buying a large quantity of just 3 or 4 different annuals and filling my containers with those, but really, a stereotypical overflowing pot of sweet potato vines or petunias is pretty, but just doesn't impress me the way a color coordinated mix of foliage and flowers does. It's also fun to try new plants each year to see how they grow and mesh with old favorites. Someday I hope to extend this hobby of mixing plants to the larger scale with landscaping, where the risks of mistakes resulting in lost time and money are a little higher.

 Mike's farming season is starting off well. He is very excited to have a spot at the weekend farmer's market this year. The first one was last weekend, and he sold a good amount of home-tapped maple syrup, homegrown jam, along with one bunch of rhubarb, one bunch of purple asparagus, and a few containers of shiitake mushrooms and Jerusalem artichokes.

Yes, he really did go to market with ONE bunch of rhubarb and ONE bunch of asparagus. And he sold them. Whatever works, I guess!

Another fantastic part of May are the morels; hunting for them makes me feel like I'm a kid searching out Easter eggs, as if God were planning a fun activity for us every year like we do for our children. Actually, I think that's probably exactly what He's doing. Mike was able to go out sans offspring this year (much easier to hunt on thorny hills without a baby on your back), and he found a nice crop, which he'll be taking to the market tomorrow. 

 

 There's not a whole lot to sell this early in the year. He's yet to even plant his heat-loving crops, which means constantly tripping over tomato and pepper plants and such in my kitchen or on my deck until he can get them in the ground. At this point, it looks like the frost is probably over, but there are still some lows in the 30s in the forecast, and 38 degrees Fahrenheit + tomato plants = sad and stressed tomato plants!

 As much as I'd love a greenhouse, or even just a room to keep all this garden debris in (you can't even walk through the garage, and we have a large garage!), I have to say that I'm loving seeing this green stuff everywhere, feeling the days get warmer and longer, and enjoying the absolutely perfect weather, even if that means stumbling over jars of sweet potato sprouts in the kitchen and a smelly bag of chicken poop fertilizer when I open my car door.

These moments are what we dream of and live for all winter long.

May really is my most favorite month

 

 .

It's coming...

This week something fantastic happened: highs in the mid 50s made it into the 10 day forecast. Yes! We're talking a day or two in the upper 50s, which rounds up to 60, which is almost an appropriately comfortable household temperature. OUTSIDE. Spring is on its way, folks!!

This winter has been a much easier one for me than the last. 

Remember last year's bitter cold? Like, kids in the Northern Midwest missing school because it's so cold? Apparently 10 degrees vs -20 degrees does make a difference in how miserable a winter feels. And I thought for sure it was going to be a very tough winter with a new little baby keeping me inside, but it's been mild this year and not so bad. 

However, truly warm temps are coming, like they do every year, and we're starting to get ready for some gardening fun around here!

Mike's got some of our maples tapped and ready for the sap to rise. It's been so great having real maple syrup all year long, made from our own backyard, so much so that Mike is thinking about building an outdoor evaporator stove to make syrup on, maybe next year.

He was also able to attend the MOSES organic farming conference last week, where he learned about grafting apple trees, legal issues in organic farming, permaculture, and a lot of other farming topics he gets excited about. This year he plans to apply to sell at our Saturday farmer's market, which may or may not work out, but every step is a little closer to an organic farming career for him.

I'm looking forward to filling my new planters with colorful annuals, now that my perennials are complete (enough) in the front yard. Browsing briefly through the online catalog for Baker Creek Seeds reminded me just how delightful it is to grow beautiful things! Mike's already purchased his seeds; still have to shop for mine!

In the pursuit of fresh inspiration, I opened Pinterest and once again wished there was a Pinterest created entirely for the garden, because many of the articles are just... gimmicky... and don't strike a cord with what a person really needs to garden well. DIY stepping stones, growing vegetables from grocery store cuttings, little tricks with overzealous promises: these are not the things that make gardening great. Pinterest has some good stuff, but I have yet to find many inspiring places on the web for those who love to dig and deadhead. Perhaps that's because so many hardcore gardeners are OUTSIDE working in the dirt instead of online!

Random duck in my driveway, trying to keep me from leaving for work.  Had to get out and chase him away. Pretty sure he didn't see my car inching toward him because he was daydreaming about Spring

Well, we'll all be outside again soon! In the meantime, I'd better go order my seeds so I can stake out a chunk of grow light space before Mike claims it all!

Happy almost-Spring!