Concord grape leaves opening up
Posts in: Gardening
It’s very windy here at Green Man’s Grotto. Our resident pond frog is taking in the air before the storms rush in tonight.
Sand cherry and jane magnolia blooms
It’s a beautiful spring day here. Rachel is outside giving our pond its spring cleaning. I’m inside preparing a budget presentation. One of these things is more fun than the other.
First sighting of the frog in our pond this year! Looks like he survived the winter. Can you see his head poking above the water near the edge?
We live on a 1/10 acre city lot, mostly covered in a house, detached garage and driveway. Rachel told me today that she has now sown 65 varieties of plants—perennials and annuals, flowers and vegetables. We have a wildlife pond, a grape arbor, and more room to expand. That’s a lot in a small space.
Spring is coming and I'm making lists
Also, I’m putting off reviewing financial reporting this morning. Projects to complete in the next couple of weeks: A 2x10 on one of our raised beds has buckled and needs to be replaced. When we first built these beds, we weren’t considering the chemicals in treated lumber, which is what we used. This will be the first board to replace and we’re going to go untreated from here on out.
Ah, spring really is on the way. Woodland crocus is the first flower we see in our yard every year. I need to get out to the woods soon to see if any of the ephemerals are up.
Crow visitors!
We’ve been hoping to attract some crow visitors for a while now by putting out bread and popcorn in addition to the seed and suet we already put out. Three of them finally found us yesterday! One of our new crow friends picked up a stale piece of bread and pecked at it a few times. Apparently unsatisfied, he/she carried it to the garage gutter and dropped it in some water, presumably softening it up.
We pruned out Concord grape vines today. It’s more complicated than I would have thought! Hopefully we did okay.
