Early Bloomers

hyacinths among the daffodils and budding tulips

The hyacinths are blooming and their fragrance fills the air.  One of the fun things about a perennial garden is anticipating the next flowers to bloom throughout the season.  The pink and red primroses are flowering, too.

primrose

primrose

Golden Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils

William Wordsworth

Glory of the Snow

Another of my first flowers to appear in the spring is Glory of the Snow, also known as Chionodoxa, a small flowering bulb in shades of lilac with white throats.

The photos show them growing among the daffodils, which should be opening in a few days.   

Chionodoxa is a member of the lily family and native to Turkey.  It grows about 6" tall and should be planted in sun to part shade in well-drained soil. The bulbs spread easily.

Rhubarb

Today seemed like a good day to get started in the vegetable garden -- a cool 50 degrees with no wind.  

One of our first crops to emerge in the spring is rhubarb.  I've had the same plant for about 20 years and it produces an abundance of stalks each year. This year, however, I've decided to change things around in the vegetable garden and the rhubard was in a bad location. I dug up the clump and divided it into three parts.

Clump of rhubarb

Rhubarb is a herbaceous perennial that grows from rhizomes.  It has edible stalks, but the leaves are poisonous and contain oxalic acid.

I dug 3 large holes and filled them with compost and topsoil and a handful of slow-release fertilizer.  After mixing the ingredients, I added one clump of rhubarb to each prepared hole.

Hole enriched with compost and fertilizer

Replanted section of rhubarb

Since it's very early in the season, they should take hold quickly and provide a nice crop this year to use for sauce and pies.

Maple syrup update:  Saturday we removed the spiles (taps) from our maple trees. The trees are beginning to bud, so that's a sign that the tapping season has ended.  I boiled the last of the sap and the final tally was 1 gallon plus 3/4 cup of syrup total for the season. 

First Day of Spring

"I love spring anywhere; but if I could choose,  I would always greet it in a garden."  Ruth Stout

The tulip bulbs that I planted in the fall are now sprouting and are about 3 inches tall.  The bulbs were planted on October 8, 2016 (See "Tulip Bulbs" post). They are a bright pink variety growing on both sides of the arbor at the garden entrance.  They've been covered by our recent snowfall which doesn't harm the new growth.

The garlic cloves that were planted last fall have also sprouted.

garlic sprouting

And our maple trees continue to drip sap.  So far we've made 3 quarts of syrup.  Each day I save the sap in gallon milk jugs and store them in the refrigerator.  Right now there are 6 gallons saved, so I'll probably boil them down tomorrow, making about 2-1/2 cups of syrup from the 6 gallons. That'll be 5 to 6 hours of boiling.

Update:  The sap was really flowing from our 6 taps, so I ended up with 10 gallons to boil down.  It took 10 hours and ended up with 3-1/2 cups of syrup!

Happy Spring!

Spring is in the Air !

It's March 4th and even though the temperature is only 19F right now, Spring is definitely in the air!  

Today I visited my favorite garden/feed center to purchase seed starting mixture and peat pots to start some of my plants early under lights at home. 

I chose a soiless mixture consisting of mostly peat moss that is sterile, lightweight and free from seeds.  The containers I chose are pressed peat moss that can be planted in the garden right along with the starter plant. 

A few years ago I purchased a 3-tiered light system that is set up in my basement laundry room, conveniently located near the sink for a water source. Each shelf has a set of lights above it that are on 12 hour timers.

3-tiered shelf system with lighting above each shelf

Pressed peat pots filled with soiless planting mixture

Today, I'm seeding the Asclepias Curassavica (Tropical Milkweed), Ruby Glow Romaine Lettuce, and Early Marvel Brussels Sprouts.  The lettuce and Brussels sprouts plants can be set out in the garden in early Spring, since they like the cool weather.    Our area of New York is considered Zone 5b or 6a and our last frost is around May 31st, so the heat-loving tropical milkweed plants won't be planted outside until after that date.  

I'll press 2 or 3 seeds into each pot.  When they emerge, I'll save the healthiest sprout, leaving just one seedling in each pot.

The Snowdrops are in Bloom!

The temperature was 71 degrees when I took this photo 3 days ago on February 24.  For Western New York, that's unusually warm! I think that temperature broke the record.   

Back to reality today in the 40s.

Snowdrops (Galanthus) are bulbs that multiply from year-to-year and are the first to flower in the late winter, sometimes when there is still snow on the ground.


The sap continues to drip from our four maple tree taps.  So far we've boiled down enough sap to make 2 quarts of syrup.

It's Maple Syrup Time (Part II)

After six days of tree tapping, we accumulated 7-1/2 gallons of sap from our four taps. The sap was stored in the refrigerator in empty, cleaned gallon milk jugs.

After sterlizing the glass syrup bottles and caps with boiling water and placing a filter in a quart measuring container, I was ready to go.

Sterlized bottles and caps; container with filter

We have an apartment sized gas stove in our garage that we use to boil the sap and have estimated the cost at about 25 cents of gas per hour of boiling. Not bad!

Sap boiling on the stove

After boiling the sap to syrup stage, it's filtered to remove impurities, called niter.  After filtering, the syrup is clear.

Sediment after filtering

Today the 7-1/2 gallons of sap took 7 hours to boil down to syrup stage.  We ended up with 3-1/2 cups of maple syrup. Pancakes tomorrow! 

Finished Maple Syrup

It's Maple Syrup Time! (Part I)

We always look forward to February when it's time to tap our four maple trees in order to get sap for maple syrup.

Sap flows when daytime temperatures rise above freezing (32 Fahrenheit / 0 Celsius) and nighttime temps fall below freezing.  Best temps are 40s during the day and 20s at night.  The rising temp creates pressure in the tree, thereby generating the sap flow. 

We have two sugar maples (acer saccharum) and two red maples (acer rubrum).  

We used a 7/16" drill bit to drill a 1" deep hole in the tree.  Then the spile or spout was tapped into the hole with a hammer, a bucket was attached to a hook on the spile and the cover was put in place.  The sap began dripping immediately.

It takes approximately 40 gallons of sap to produce 1 gallon of finished maple syrup.

Spile in place and sap beginning to flow 2/6/17

Large sugar maple tree with two taps.  

Think Spring!

Browsing through the seed catalogs that are arriving in the mail is a great way to start the new year!