Our last spring frost last year was just past the middle of May, pretty late for year, but it was severe enough that there wasn't much local fruit last summer.
It's been unseasonably warm here for late March and April, almost too warm. And of course, last week we had temps down into the low 20's to do a number on all of those early apply and peach blossoms. I have one tree, a volunteer, that I've been eyeballin' for a couple of years that lives at a woods line. I had seen it while mowing and remarked to myself that it sure looked like a peach tree. Well, this year, I saw the most beautiful blossoms on it, sure looked like peach blossoms, to me, too. Of course, I saw them right before the frost. So, here I come, in all my "redneckness", with stakes to make a big "tent", and a big swath of greenhouse plastic that I had left over from putting up our small high tunnel, plus a couple of trouble lights for a bit of heat, should have been about 300 watts or so, but I figured that would at least keep the temps above freezing.
I think the neighbors probably thought we snapped our cap when they drove by for those 3 nights. Looked a bit like a deranged nativity scene. But hey, it worked. Those blossoms did really well through that cold snap and now we're back in the 70's in the daytime, 40's and 50's at night cycle. The sour cherry tree decided it was time to get into the act about 2 days ago and started poppin' pretty little cherry blossoms, too. The bradford pear has turned from a white snowball to a green tree and the maples are really coming out now, too. So maybe spring has sprung.
The grass has certainly rizz, and had it's first cutting, as well.
Will we have another frost as ol' man winter thumbs his nose at us on the way out? Probably. He does that to us most every year. So we'll keep the row covers handy.
Sorry, rambling a bit... maybe a hummer will be by today.
for the birds!
