Strawberry Spring

Today, it is the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere.  Where I live in the Southern Tier of New York State, we had clear blue skies and springlike weather today.  Bulbs are coming up although my crocuses haven't decided to bloom yet.

This year's big surprise:  strawberries.

Last spring, I bought a strawberry plant - although considered an ornamental, it does produce good tasting tiny strawberries.  I planted it in a large hanging basket.  We got a handful of ripe berries from the plant last year. When the cold weather moved in, we moved the plant to our unheated garage, and hoped for the best.

Last week we visited the plant, and it was obviously alive.  We were able to put it outside on a couple of sunny days. We still have to take it in at night.

Today, this is how my plant greeted spring.  It's definitely broken dormancy.  It may have helped that we had a relatively mild (temperature wise) winter - it never got below zero at our house.

We haven't started any seeds yet, but tomorrow, we will go over to our community garden and plant sugar snap peas in my raised bed planter.  The in ground plots don't normally get plowed until May.  We haven't started tomatoes yet - this year decided to start them a little late.  But it will be time really soon.

I'm thinking of growing some swiss chard in a large pot again this year. We planted a couple of plants from seed in a pot last year and they did well - "proof of concept". I think we've given up on growing cucumbers in a large planter - we get some but then they get mold, or a weird thing where they grow with one pinched end and the cuke's growth is stunted.  Obviously we are doing something wrong.

The birds in our neighborhood are quite active.  Along the river, we saw the underbelly of what "may" have been a 2nd year juvenile bald eagle in flight - it was large and had a beautiful pattern on the underside of its wings.  It flapped a few times, wings held straight, and then soared a few seconds, then flapped again.  It almost made me gasp.  We saw one adult bald eagle (first time ever) along the river several times in late fall, so, who knows. On the other hand, we are just beginning our birding journey so I'm sure we will make a lot of ID mistakes along the way.

As a bonus, my one blooming African violet is putting up more flower buds.  I killed some house plants over the winter, and wonder if I was giving them too much love, since I'm home most all the time.

So, let's call today "strawberry spring" and see what else the weekend brings.

What about you?