Spring Equinox 2012 Musings

Spring Equinox 2012

What a warm spring this is ! Cherry is trying to bloom, apples are in leaf as are blackberries and raspberries, early daffs in front have come and gone, dandelions dot the yard, forsythia in full cry since last Friday, bradford pears are draped in white, aronias are in bud, strawberries are in leaf, roses well leafed out, plus comfrey, horseradish, sorrel, lemon balm, mints, tarragon, marjoram, costmary, winter savory, anise hyssop, yarrow, chives, and garlic chives are all off to the races. Yuzu, bay and lemon verbena successfully overwintered in their usual abode. Garlic, elephant garlic and potato onions show grow worthy of early May.

Snap peas, onion plants, yellow sets for green onions,spinach and early potatoes are in the ground. The cold frame is playing catchup with radish and lettuce seedlings. January planted spinach in a low tunnel will probably bolt in the June-like weather. Cabbage, cauliflower, and collards overwintered with little cover, while leeks, parsnips and carrots need to be dug before they get ideas about sending up flower stalks.

Leek, onion, cabbage, kale and tatsoi seedlings look to be set out soon, as soon as a couple more rolls of horticultural fleece and hoops are stashed for emergency coverings of small fruit and early plantings. All of this is far advanced from a normal weather year. The winter of 2011-12 was quite warm: National Weather Service has details and statistics. The bones say this is late May/early June weather : highs in 80's, low of 60. Of course the vegetation is in overdrive. Everyone is in fear of normal weather, frosts and NO FRUIT this summer/fall, due to early arrival of warm temperatures.

Most years at 40 degrees North, the ground is barely thawed by early March and some years it's a struggle to find a patch dry enough to turn up for the St Paddy's day ceremonial peas and potato planting, watered with a ritual slosh of beer.

The new pullets, white winged brown egg plants, are not fooled by the warmth. "Give us twelve hours a day of sunlight else we won't lay", they cluck. An egg Saturday, one Sunday and two on the Equinox as the girls tune up for henhood with much clucking and confusion.

A good rain would be a good thing in the next few days. Tractors are running in the fields, pastures greening fast, regular precipitation is needed, as an omega high pattern may be forming in the Great Plains. A similar , but later pattern occurred in 1989, followed by a summer drought, a classic pattern, perhaps indicating climate shift similar to the "dirty Thirties" or less auspicious patterns in the pre-Columbian Americas.

It will be a nervous eight weeks until the normal last frost date.