What happens in a week!

I last wrote about all the warm weather we are having. A friend of mine said "April is the cruelest month" and after the last few days, I couldn't agree more! We have a trace of snow and it is not what a gardener wants to see this time of year. The warmer weather we were having did push many of my daffodils and tulips up, many with buds ready to open and others with buds just starting to form. The hyacinths, one of my absolute favorites, have opened and their scent even in the cold, is overwhelmingly wonderful. None of the vegetables I planted last weekend have started to emerge, but I'll keep reporting on their progress. My dad always

told me I needed to be more patient in the garden and he was right and today the weather is just one more reminder that Mother Nature is truly in charge!

Amazing what a little warm weather will do!

We had a spectacular spring weekend here in Western New York. Sun, the warmest temperatures yet for 2011 and the emergence of flowers and insects. I have daffodils, Grecian wind flowers, an early tulip and a star flower open as of lunch time today. These early bloomers really do give you hope that your garden will come back to life and that it is well on its way to gorgeousness. I also planted two typ

es of Swiss Chard, beets and spinach and I'll report on their progress once I start to see some shoots. Enjoy these photos of some early blooms.

Time for Early Spring Vegetables

Now that I think we are finally past the time of much measurable snow, it's time to start thinking about planting early spring vegetables. I have three - square foot gardening boxes in my garden. Each box is two foot square. I use these boxes to grow vegetables each summer. Because they are small, they are easy to maintain and because they are raised beds, the soil drains well and there is no breaking ground each spring. I built the square foot gardening boxes after reading the book "All New Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space" by Mel Bartholomew. It's a wonderful book that describes how easy it is to grow lots of vegetables in just a little space. After I built my boxes, I used the soil recipe in the book to make the soil mixture to fill my boxes. Now all I do is add some fresh mushroom compost and a little vermiculite each year and my vegetables grow wild! The book also lists how many of each type of vegetable that you can grow in 1 square foot of space. This weekend it looks like temperatures will be back in the 50s and the soil is workable, so it is time to plant my early spring vegetables. This year I'm planting beets, two types of Swiss Chard, Buttercrunch head lettuce and spinach. When we pass the frost date, I will add Early Girl and grape tomato plants and waxed beans. These spaces are small, so there is very little maintenance and the only fertilizer I use is organic compost. I have never had a pest problem and I think that is because there is so much variety in my garden. Pick your favorite spring vegetable and get planting!

It's that time of year again!

Spring has officially arrived and it is time to start regularly blogging about my garden. The snow is melted, although it is predicted to snow tomorrow! I've been out in my garden cutting down dead plants from last fall and raking away leaves to give the spring bulbs a better chance to reach the sunlight. My first crocus opened around St. Patrick's Day and for a northern gardener, that first flower is like Spring's reward for a long cold dark winter.I have yellow and purple crocus in my yard and definitely not enough of them. Every fall I look at the bulb selections in my local stores and I always want more tulips and daffodils. This fall I am not going to overlook the smaller, earlier blooming bulbs and will add many more crocus as well as snow drops. I've also been thinking that I need to add some Lenten Rose and see if I get anything blooming in February. The spring show of bulbs will start in just a few weeks and I can't wait to see what it looks like! Every fall I plant more bulbs and try to plant them in places that had no spring flowers. Some bulbs die out, some bulbs get dug up and eaten by squirrels and some bulbs just do not re flower, so adding bulbs each fall is the key to having a gorgeous spring display. Happy Gardening Season!

Mason Bees

A few weeks ago for my birthday, my sister Amy gave me a Mason Bee house. I've seen these bee houses in gardening magazines and on the Internet and thought they looked interesting. I'm fascinated with bees of all types and loved receiving this gift. Mason bees are not aggressive and are super pollinators - I've read that one Mason Bee can do the pollinating work of a thousand honey bees. With all of the flowers I have in my yard, I have lots of bees and other insects. Now that I've seen a picture of a Mason Bee (they are green blue in color and not striped yellow and black - what you typically think of when you think bees) I will keep my eyes open for them. From what I've read about them, they only appear in the spring, but this has been a strange weather and gardening year, so maybe they are still around. In the spring when the mason bees come out of hibernation, they mate and the female lays her eggs in woody crevices she finds. A Mason Bee house gives the Mason Bee a place to lay their eggs. The bees who hatch are likely to stay in the area, so hopefully I can increase my bee population even more.

An update on my last post - I have two delphiniums that have re bloomed! I was so excited and happy to see the new blooms. They are smaller blooms than the originals, but lovely none the less.

There really is a lot of gardening time left in WNY

I was looking at my garden the other day and thought to myself "My garden is on its decline toward fall." Then I read an article and it talked about how we have about 10 more weeks until we get a frost and that there is lots of gardening time left. After reading this, my gardening energy renewed! I took a second look at my garden and thought "There are still so many flowers blooming and many I can dead head to produce a second blooming." So, this morning, I was out in my garden cutting back my Purple Rain salvia, which grows to jungle proportions and produces beautiful smokey purple blooms on spikes that engulf my sidewalk. I felt much better after cutting those back (2 garbage bags full! Sadly, my yard is too small for a compost bin...). Some roses and coreoposis are next in line for a mid summer cutting as is my cat mint, which has already sent up a mass of new blooms. Every year at this time it's a bit of struggle as a gardener because the gorgeous May and June blooms have come and gone and I am challenged to find more plants that bloom later in the year. So, if you too are feeling like the gardening season is on its way out, take a second look and see what you can deadhead and spruce up to encourage a second set of blooms!

The Good and the Bad

I'm just back from a very hot and enjoyable week at the lake. I checked on my garden on Tuesday and watered pots because the weather was so unseasonably hot and dry and I didn't want anything to die of thirst. I looked through my perennial beds and everything seemed to be doing well. I arrived home from the lake yesterday afternoon and went into my gardens to see what needed to be done. To my dismay, Japanese Beetles have nearly eaten 4 of my new rose bushes! I picked off every one I could find and killed it and then started to look at plants close by. There were a few on neighboring plants, so I killed those as well. My first thought was to get out the spray, so I grabbed it from the basement and started to read the directions. The bottle said 'very highly toxic to bees'. Well, my garden is full of bees and other pollinators, so I decided not to spray. Now I'm looking for an organic alternative. In the mean time, I started to look at other plants to see if the infestation was anywhere else in my garden and my other plants, as of today are free of Japanese Beetles. While I am sad about my roses, I am very happy to find butterflies feeding on my pink Coneflower at the other end of my garden! Something good always comes with the bad and I'm so happy about the butterflies, that I can almost forget about the Japanese Beetles.