First signs of spring

TheSeedObsesser

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We mostly have Downys and Redheads. I do recall seeing a pileated woodpecker but only once. Haven't seen or heard a single one of any yet.
 

journey11

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Spring is on the way! I now have proof!
Despite the continued cold. Despite the continued snow. Despite my forgetting to add water. Somehow the plants know. They know it is time to start growing.

View attachment 1358
Here wintering in the sun room, are my fig starts, a pot of freesia and some tuberoses that just seemed to know it was time and started to grow.

My fig tree did the same thing. I had it in the cool, dark basement and all of a sudden it took a notion to leaf out. It has new limbs on it now over a foot long, so I put it in the wheelbarrow and brought it up to the sunroom to hang out for the next couple of months. I was worried it might wear itself out before the right time to make figs, but I feel a little better now seeing that yours is confused too!
 

Smart Red

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Black pot at bottom left; is that a fig?? It kind of looks like one!

Yes, that is my Brown Turkey fig baby in the black pot. The bigger red pot also has a fig.

Now I'll have to check the dahlias and begonias for signs of growth. It's still a long time before anything like that gets planted outside.
 

AMKuska

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Spring in 1980 was a difficult time in the garden, downwind from Mount St. Helens. Downhill would have been worse.

Disney was prescient . . .

:hide Steve

I live right under Mt. Rainier. I'm going to be beside myself if I finally get a garden growing well and that thing blows!
 

digitS'

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It was the end of my gardening that year. Breathing was more important.

I have a friend from the Philippines. Places there had a very difficult time the last few years. I asked him about what folks do about the floods and then the hurricane. He said, they leave. I should have been so lucky. Paid close attention to what was happening and gone somewhere else for awhile.

That while would then have turned into several months. It was not a pleasure being here in the summer of 1981. We really appreciated every rain and snow storm for a few years. You would still find the ash blowing several years later but it was mostly that summer of 1980.

Indoors, we stayed indoors as much as possible. You'd think that would work out fine for a greenhouse worker but all that ash had to come off the glass. Then, the greenhouses had to be opened up because of whatever sunlight was coming through. We were cooking, in our almost-clean glass houses. The ash just continued to come in.

I had a job and a new home. The greenhouse company got a check from the guvmint for losses. Good thing but we were right at rose bush "cut-back" since Mother's Day had already passed. Memorial Day counted for nothing. We were good to go by Thanksgiving but getting there was miserable.

Steve
 

catjac1975

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It was the end of my gardening that year. Breathing was more important.

I have a friend from the Philippines. Places there had a very difficult time the last few years. I asked him about what folks do about the floods and then the hurricane. He said, they leave. I should have been so lucky. Paid close attention to what was happening and gone somewhere else for awhile.

That while would then have turned into several months. It was not a pleasure being here in the summer of 1981. We really appreciated every rain and snow storm for a few years. You would still find the ash blowing several years later but it was mostly that summer of 1980.

Indoors, we stayed indoors as much as possible. You'd think that would work out fine for a greenhouse worker but all that ash had to come off the glass. Then, the greenhouses had to be opened up because of whatever sunlight was coming through. We were cooking, in our almost-clean glass houses. The ash just continued to come in.

I had a job and a new home. The greenhouse company got a check from the guvmint for losses. Good thing but we were right at rose bush "cut-back" since Mother's Day had already passed. Memorial Day counted for nothing. We were good to go by Thanksgiving but getting there was miserable.

Steve
Wow Steve! I hope you do not have any health issues related to those times. We have a lot of people who love to complain about government assistance. I wonder how they feel about a story like yours.A letup to survive is all most people need in bad times. What did the ash do to the growing conditions down the road? I have seen the very frightening footage of the eruption that you lived through.
 

digitS'

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Some farmers got a crop. Everything was planted. It must have been awfully hard on their machinery that fall.

It depended where you were. The Palouse was blanketed with ash.

It turned out fairly good for our soils! Yeah. Needed sulfur . . :)

Steve
 

vfem

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We got Tulips and daffodils poking out... I was so excited just to see that.

Then Driving my daughter to school yesterday I saw someone with a whole CLUMP of completely blooming daffodils at the end of the driveway. OMG, so lucky!!!
 

NwMtGardener

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We got Tulips and daffodils poking out... I was so excited just to see that.

Then Driving my daughter to school yesterday I saw someone with a whole CLUMP of completely blooming daffodils at the end of the driveway. OMG, so lucky!!!

That is just so FLABBERGHASTING to me!!!!! It's -14 with the wind chill here today, a blizzard with wicked wind gusts and even more astonishing SCHOOL IS CLOSED. I think it's the first day all winter for the school in my town!
 

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