Warm temperatures, early spring, garden work

The temperatures today and tomorrow will almost hit record highs: 80 and 85 degrees! Unbelievable weather for February, even around here. And we're known for getting freezes as late as the end of March (and mid-April one memorable year) so that's going to pose a real danger to all the blooming fruit trees for the next few weeks. Everything is early, as I mentioned yesterday. I sure hope the state's peach crop doesn't suffer a late freeze! I love and look forward to fresh peaches in the summer.

Anyway, as odd as it is to wear shorts at this time of year, I won't deny I'm really enjoying myself. The dogs are, too, judging by how much time they're spending either on the screened porch or out in the backyard. I took them both for a good walk this morning, and we all enjoyed that. 

"Just take the damn picture already!"

On Monday I called a local greenhouse/plant nursery and asked about blueberry bushes. More specifically, another rabbiteye variety that I can plant for cross pollination with the three I planted last year. The woman I spoke with said she'd have the fruit tree expert call me back, and this morning he did. A nice guy named Ryan who seems to know a lot about blueberries, and it so happened he had the very variety I was looking for in stock! He told me he'd put the two best ones on hold for me, since I didn't plan to go out there today.

A couple of hours later I got a call from a sweet lady who works in records at the district office, asking me for a favor. She needed a student's birth certificate scanned and emailed to her, and the student goes to our school. I really like this lady (she's been very kind and helpful to me this school year) so I agreed to go up to my school and take care of it. It only took a minute, and since I was out and about anyway, I decided to go pick up my blueberries before coming back home. Now I have a total of five blueberry bushes! Two Premier, two Climax, and one Pink Lemonade. I'm looking forward to lots of blueberries in the next year or two once they gain some real size.

Yesterday I fertilized all of our fruit trees, the three original blueberries, the fig, the crabapple, and the pomegranate. With these warm temperatures I don't think it's too early. Later this afternoon I'm going to plant the new blueberries and then sow some lettuce in the raised bed. Maybe some carrots and radishes, too. Early spring salads will be nice.

I also started a few more tomato and pepper seeds yesterday since they've been so slow to germinate. Now that I've got extra seeds started they'll probably all pop up at once and leave me with too many extras (like last year). I can always find someone to give seedlings away to, though. In fact, I had a great conversation with Ryan about heirloom tomatos, so I may take him a plant or two in a few weeks as a "thank you" for the fruit tree advice he gave me. 

I'm lucky to have had such nice weather during my time off for garden work. Alas, the daffodils I planted didn't come back this year. I'm pretty convinced the deer ate them, which reminds me of something: I've got to get to work building a wire cage to go around the tiny crabapple tree. Once it starts growing leaves the deer will have a feast if I don't do something! So there's my next garden project for this upcoming weekend, a deer-proof cage. If only I could completely forget about doing housework and concentrate on the garden! I'd much rather work outside than in.