The Bees are Back

In mid-February the camellia at the northwest corner of our house began to bloom, and as soon as the last polar vortex swept through and the weather began to warm, honey bees were on the flowers. Yesterday I saw bumblebees for the first time this year; two or three bumblebees having joined the honeybees in gathering pollen from the mustard flowers in our large vegetable garden. They should be enjoying the white clover that is beginning to bloom, too. Clover has spread in large patches throughout the east and north sides of our property, and I usually mow around most of it, leaving flowers for bees and the tender leaves for rabbits. This weekend I found two four-leaf clovers, plucked them, and placed them to dry in a paperback copy of Michael Pollan's book The Botany of Desire. Last year I found twenty or so four-leaf clovers over the course of the spring and early summer.

With highs in the 70s (Fahrenheit) this past week, I was tempted to begin spring gardening, so I took out a couple of packets of nasturtium seed. The directions advise to wait until all danger of frost is past...and another cold front is heading across the country, with a low in the thirties predicted here for Monday night. Will it frost? I don't know. But I planted some nasturtium seeds anyway in flower pots on my patio. I suspect that they will be fine.

The red salvia and blue-gray salvia have sprouted and are leafing out, violets are blooming, johnny jump-ups that reseeded from last year are blooming, and the tender green shoots of bulbs are beginning to poke above ground. We are waiting to see how devastating the freezes have been to our citrus trees, banana trees, lemongrass, and variegated ginger. None of these plants are showing signs of life yet. The white-flowering althea in our back yard is shyly showing a bit of green, unaware of the cold weather still in store for us.

We are still pulling carrots and turnips from the winter vegetable garden; green shallots are flourishing, but the purple mustard greens and other winter greens have been afflicted with tiny bugs. Tom transplanted leeks in the vegetable garden; they seem to be very slow-growing plants. All his habanero, serano, ghost peppers, and tomatillos have sprouted in their temporary containers. He thinned tomato sprouts yesterday, moving some of the extra sprouts to another container for a friend.

The ground remains too wet to do much weed-clearing in the flower beds. Tom dug a hole yesterday in which to plant a live oak sprout, and the clay bottom of the hole quickly gathered water. He emptied the rain gauge and noted that it measured 2.85 inches of water from the last week-and-a-half, and we're expecting more rain this week. Soon, however, temperatures will begin to rise quickly. I hope we'll get a few dry days in a row so that I can have everything ready for some serious planting.

Time to finalize my summer garden plans.