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April feels like spring

It snowed here all through March and into the first week of April, interspersed with just enough sun and warmth to demonstrate what we were missing. But finally this weekend spring got its act together, with warm weather and sun, mixed with rainshowers.

Yesterday’s 81F and severe thunderstorms were a bit disconcerting: we seem to have gone suddenly from winter to summer.

But the weekend was gorgeous. I finally got out and started the yard work. I cleaned part of the front flower bed, chopped down whole piles of shrubbery from the part of the yard that’s been selected for this year’s improvement project, and I cleaned up the raised beds. (Raised beds! No digging!)

Raised beds

I pulled any remaining dead vegetation out, topped up the beds with more soil to compensate for settling, and put in the cold-weather crops: peas, spinach and lettuce.

I found a few escapees from the fall, too.

carrots

The perennials are starting to come back to life. Not the rosemary: it’s not hardy here, and I didn’t bother to find a big pot and a place to store it for the winter, but the hardier perennial herbs, the strawberries, and the lovely little rhubarb nubbins.

rhubarb

With the warmth and the rain, there should be new growth any minute. I haven’t seen any pea shoots yet, but I don’t expect it to take long.

And then it will snow again, but fortunately the peas can take it.

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