Apple buds at green tip stage

Prima apple buds at green tip stage, late April, 2014

The blog entry title is meant to invoke the slow growing season, not the slow food movement. Pictured above are Prima apple buds from my orchard here on this island, at the green tip stage, in late April. The season then was about 2-3 weeks behind where it's been for the past few years, though over the course of the last 30 years I'd say it was only a little later than normal. If you look closely at the tops of the reddish bud cases you'll see the green tips emerging. By now they have leafed out, and it's too early to judge whether this will be a good blossom year. The Prima seems to be my most photogenic tree, for some reason.

Birds are back but the season is slow

     After returning from a short trip to southern New England last week, I noticed that more summer bird species had taken advantage of my absence to move in. In the past five days I've now heard the hermit thrush, the bluejay, the black-throated green warbler, and the oven bird. The goldfinches are much more numerous now. Even the phoebe has made a few cameos. But no white-throated sparrows yet. Warblers are here but other than the black-throated green I haven't identified any yet. It's been raining almost continuously for four days, keeping me inside most of the time. Tomorrow it will stop, but then it's supposed to rain again for another three days. This has been good for indoor work but not so good for outdoor. This afternoon between periods of drizzle I managed to get out and finish planting broccoli, brussels sprouts, and a few lettuce transplants. It's too wet to plant seeds. The snow peas are a few inches tall and soon I'll need to drop a woven threaded mesh where they can climb, for this year I'm experimenting with a snow pea variety that grows to five feet, instead of the usual dwarf sugar snaps or podded peas. The onions that haven't washed out are starting to grow their tops, but the potatoes have yet to show themselves. It's way too cold and damp to plant beans, tomatoes, peppers or cucumbers. About ten days ago I managed to get a Garden Royal heirloom variety apple tree into the ground, and today I fenced it against the deer, cutting some saplings and pounding them into the ground, then stretching fence to encircle the whip, which is taller than the usual ones that come from Fedco, about five feet and already beginning to leaf out. The trees in the orchard and other parts of the property have been in leaf for a week now, though with all the rain there should be some issues with scab later on in the season. It's hard to tell at this point what kind of blossom year it'll be.

Slow birds

     In this cold, wet and backward spring, the birds have been slow to migrate to the island. Today I heard ospreys whistling aloft, then looked up to confirm it. Four were circling, lower than usual. A couple of days ago on my afternoon walk I heard a downy woodpecker knocking a tree. Usually they are a week earlier. No white-throated sparrows yet, though the song sparrows are around. The phoebe that visited earlier has seldom been back, so I don't suppose a nesting pair will be here as they were last summer. Robins abound, singing more often just after a rain, or as it comes to an end in drizzle. Haven't yet seen or heard bluejays. Goldfinches are scarce and should not be. The hermit thrushes I thought I heard a while ago have not sounded since. Soon, I hope. I did hear a Nashville warbler three days ago, out by the camp. They are rare visitors here. I didn't recognize the song and had to consult Donald Borror's recordings to identify it. As usual, the chickadees are most numerous. I've always hoped to see a boreal, but it's the black-capped that is here, there, and everywhere. They are the first here to sing a spring song, their fee'e-bee, sometimes a little earlier than the calendar arrival of spring.
     Twelve days ago I planted peas, and they're just beginning to push up out of the soil. Today onion sets and potatoes went in--the usual Stuttgarter sets (seeds take too long) and two varieties of potatoes--red gold for the early, and satina for the late keepers. All later than usual on account of the wet soil. The deer having decimated the rhododendron in front of the house, I read in a pamphlet on "gardening in deer country" that Japanese flowering quince are not to their liking, so planted two small ones near the rhody and will have to cut the rhody back severely. We'll see if the deer leave it alone. They are bold enough to come right up to the edge of the house. In a couple of days I'll plant some more vegetables and hope also to get an apple whip into the ground in the orchard where another had a rough go--same variety, Garden Royal. The town truck came up the dirt road today and spread some dirt into the places where it had washed out last fall and earlier this spring. Unaccountably, more often than not they time this road work just before a rain and this was no exception as the forecast is for a storm tomorrow. But the forecasts aren't always accurate and one can hope for a light rain or none.