I weeded today – A Sure Sign of Spring
Well, the official start of Spring happened today. Though, that is a point of contention between my husband and myself. He thinks Spring starts with Opening Day. I think it starts when I feel the overwhelming need to weed a flower bed.
The air was warm today and the quackgrass was calling. I gleefully ripped it out by the handful and mercilessly attacked the wild garlic while I was at it. The just burgeoning dandelions did not have a chance as I wretched them out of the rain dampened soil. Chaos and destruction in the weed world is a good day in my book.
I find it kind of funny that I do not consider the appearance of flowers to be the start of Spring. The showing of snowdrops and Siberian iris are good signal flags that Spring is on her slow-ass way, but their appearance is not the start of Spring in my mind. The early flowers are more like the Secret Service of Spring. Making sure that all is ready and that winter has not laid a devious plot to assassinate her when she arrives.
But the fist time I fail to make it to my front door after coming home from the grocery store because I just wanted to pull one errant blade of grass… and 2 hours, one ruined pair of jeans and “groceries still in the car†later… this has got to be Spring.
My husband can keep his silly Indian Opener as the start of Spring. I know for a fact it snowed on opening day last year, so what kind of Spring start is that? I will stick with the tried and true method of “Oh, that should not be growing there. I think I will just pull it†as the real measure of when the Spring starts.
I totally agree…that siren’s call of the garden and the lost hours mean spring is here. There’s not much better than a day to myself in the garden.
Spring in New Mexico is announced to me by one very bad allergy day ( around Feb. 10-20th when all the pollen seems to come out at once. THe more general sign of Spring here is the howling windss – April is the windiest month but has pleasant daytime temperatures in the 60’s or low 70’s. I have relatives in southern Ohio ( Eaton) and I noted the much smaller day/night temp variations when I was there. Desert air can lose 40 degrees between high and low, so spring for me is the frustrating time when I have to carry tomato plants in and out twice every day, and water the dickens out of everything to keep up with the drying effects of the wind. Good luck with your garden!
I agree with you about snowdrops being Spring’s secret service, but in 2006 I was weeding in February, so I don’t know if your criterion is any more accurate than your husband’s. But I like it better.
Oh, I love spring but there is a tyrany of the garden for us at this time of year: My husband and I work outside on a pretty day until we are exhausted.
After a glorious weekend we were actually relieved to have a rainy, cold day today to give our bodies a little break.
In northeast Oklahoma zone 7, the daffodils are fading, the tulips and spring shrubs are blooming and the fruit trees are making tiny fruit.
Now we are hoping that there will be no more freezing nights so nothing gets damaged.
Martha
Hanna,
If one does not leave the stuff in the car and poke around in the dirt.. then one is just a garden voyeur. And what fun is that ?
My compost pile burped and said ‘feed me more – Seymore !’
In the words of the addict… I’ll just be a minute honey. I need to take a peek at the garden.
PS – the real bats are back too. I saw a pair of them last night on my way back from the garden…
“…the real bats are back too”
…and the birds! Have you noticed the noise? That’s when spring starts for me.
I find it amusing, Hanna, that you tend to ruin your good clothes, too. Grass stains and earth clods on a light pair of trousers are quite difficult to wash out completely. As a result, I have almost more gardening clothes in my wardrobe than good ones. However, there is never enough time to get changed. Or it is not worth the bother because there is only that little speck of grass to pick out … and that tiny dandelion … and …
I am new to the area and I got all excited when I saw a robin yesterday! Thanks for helping me distinguish it from just another bird!
Anyway, I was wondering if you or your readers could help me identify this weed: http://nurturingnotes.blogspot.com/2008/04/what-is-this.html
It has a three-leaf cluster, but it doesn’t look like any of the other poison-whatever pictures I have seen on the internet.
Yep. Spring has definitely arrived in northern Ohio. One more thing to add to your well-described essay – DIRT IS ONCE AGAIN UNDER MY FINGERNAILS! Woo hooooooo!
I was about to go out of my mind with the steady delivery of Great Lakes snow this year. Now I’m muttering under my breath about all the volunteer chives. I need to get a grip– IT’S SPRING!!
Robins tend to be a sign of winter here in the deep south as they come our way as it gets colder. I’m rather surprised to see several cardinals around though.
Dirt under the fingernails isn’t a problem for me at the moment as I work at a music instrument repair shop. We have a huge ultrasonic tank out back that even gets all the dirt out of the grooves on your fingertips. It hurts but works great. On second thought, it might not be the best thing for my hands. Oh well.
The right knee in 3 pairs of jeans is blown out for that very reason. “I’ll just lean down here for a minute and pull a couple weeds….” I spend so much time just wandering through and surveying my garden for weeds and bugs. It’s actually very relaxing.
Weeds had better beware. We gardeners are back out in force!
I just moved to Madison on 6 acres.I have tall, talk-like “weeds” that are covered in thorns. they are killers and i am trying to kill them. any idea how? we have lots of trees and i find a small vine-like thing crawling up the tree. it has feet/feelers and it sticks to the tree, you have to pry it off. how do i get rid of this one? and one more — it is a vine-like ground creeper. I can pull it up and it can be 4 – 5 feet long traveling on the ground.