We've hit the time of year when the yard needs mowing every weekend -- it grows so fast with the coolth (but not cold) and the wetness. This weekend was the PCCS/Learning Farm plant sale. We got a lot of veggie and annual starts that we can't plant yet (cold) and some natives that we did plant this weekend already.
The link between gardening and phenology is strong. Indeed, the original purpose of knowing what happened when involved getting food! These links still exist. Here's an interesting chart from http://gardening.about.com/od/organicgardenin1/a/Phenology.htm:
Phenology Clues
| Plant peas | When forsythia & daffodils blooms |
| Plant potatoes | When 1st dandelion blooms |
| When the shadbush flowers | |
| Plant beets, carrots, cole crops, lettuce and spinach | When lilac is in first leaf |
| Plant beans, cucs and squash | When lilac is in full bloom |
| Plant tomatoes | When lily-of-the-valley are in full bloom |
| Transplant eggplant, melon and peppers | When irises bloom |
| Plant corn | When apple blossoms start to fall |
| Seed fall cabbage and broccoli | When catalpas and mockoranges bloom |
| Seed morning glories | When maple leaves reach full size |
| Plant cool season flowers (pansies, snapdragons...) | When aspen and chokecherry trees leaf out |
| Watch for: | |
| Eastern tent caterpillars to hatch | When crab apples start to bloom |
| Gypsy moths hatch | When the shadbush flowers |
| Squash vine borer eggs are laid | When chicory flowers |
| Mexican bean beetle larvae hatch | When foxglove flowers open. |
| Japanese beetles arrive | When morning glory vines start to climb |
On another note...I wonder if the last frost has passed... if so, I missed it! It was so long ago I didn't even write it down because it didn't seem possible it was the last one. And yet, even last night, which was very cold, in the 30s, there was no frost this morning.
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