The last week here in the DC-area has been pretty ideal, weather-wise. Nice and chilly at night, warming up to the 60s/70s during the day. I’ve learned to love this time of year because it will be oppressively hot and humid before I know what hit me. Unlike California, we only have good weather for small portions of the year, so we have to do what we can!
The plants are responding to the weather, as well. I just noticed the leaves popping out on my raspberry and blueberry bushes yesterday. And (unfortunately), the grass is even starting to grow again. You take the good with the bad, I guess!
Time To Get To Work
With warmer weather starting to show its face, I immediately feel like there is so much to do on our suburban homestead.
Remember the large area of my yard I was planning to turn into a vegetable garden? Last fall, I raked all of the leaves from our property onto the grass in that area in an attempt to smother the grass. I think it’s working, overall, but it still needs to be tilled into plantable soil. I’m planning on doing that over the next few weeks.
I finally got my act together and ordered some new fruit trees to add to our existing pears and figs. We’re getting… (drumroll)… peaches! This is very exciting for me. I never thought peaches would work well here in the mid-Atlantic, but evidently they are perfectly suited for our USDA hardiness zone (7B). I ordered dwarf varietals of the Redhaven and Elberta peach trees.* One fruits early in the summer while the other waits until mid-summer, so we should have a nice crop to work with. Time will tell how well they do, but I’m already excited for my family to be able to pick fresh peaches in just a few years.
Seed Starting
And even though we don’t have our large garden area yet to plant our veggies this spring, that doesn’t mean we have sat idly by until it’s complete. Nope! We started many of our veggies** indoors beginning February 1st. So far we’ve got bell peppers, several varietals of tomatoes, basil, and cucumbers. Everything else we are planning to grow this year will be sowed directly in the garden (stringless purple pole beans, delicata squash, some perennial herbs, and lots of different kinds of flowers). I keep on working the Three Ps: Privacy, Pollination, and Provisions!
Cheers to a fruitful year of gardening!
*Full disclosure: I usually like to order from Stark Bros (where these links point you), but they were out of the dwarf varietals of these trees. I’ve been super happy with their products and customer service in the past. Since they’re out this year, I ordered from a company called “Burgess Seed & Plant Co.” We’ll see how it goes… *fingers crossed!*
**We order our seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. They’re the best I’ve found. Also, if you ever get their catalog–it’s pure, unadulterated garden porn.
Unlike California, you also don’t have wild fires, mid slides, earthquakes, or extreme droughts. Good start for the growing season!
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