Rites of Spring

There are several signs that indicate spring has finally arrived ... I just pulled out the next to last quart from the freezer of tomato sauce from the 2007 garden harvest of paste tomatoes and cayenne peppers (we like it spicy). This is a sign that I need to clean up the garden and prepare the soil for the planting in two weeks. I got 18 quarts of sauce last year ... and that's a good amount to get me through the winter unless I give away too many to friends. April is the month for the first burger on the grill ... no tomatoes (that's for harvest time) so I usually go with a cheese, a slice of a Vidalia and a big juicy hamburger patty -- no more than medium rare. Then it's awaiting my real messengers of spring -- the hummingbirds. Some have probably seen the first visitors back from Mexico ... my guys made it here April 20 last year, so I'm patiently maintaining their feeder outside my kitchen window so they know food is available as soon as they arrive from winter abode. Food is a mixture of table sugar and water ... 4 parts water to 1 part sugar. I make up a batch and keep it in the frig ... if you make a commitment to feed the birds (and I feed the squirrels too) then you have to keep the feeders full and the food fresh. As I wait for the hummingbirds, I replace the mixture every three or four days as the liquid will mold over -- not a friendly food at that point. Another sign of spring is that finally after the early game played with daylight savings time this year, where we lost an important hour of light at the beginning of the day and tacked it on at the end. When you get up at 6 like I do, and enjoy the early morning hours, that's a bummer. But now it's more civilized as dawn is arriving around 6 now and the sun comes up at 6:30. That I can deal with ... and we're gaining 2 -3 minutes a day for the next month or so.

I'll let you know when the hummingbirds arrive and in between the usual magazine and food happenings, you will find my diary of a garden on the Web log all the way through the fall. The garden is smallish but it works ... mostly paste tomatoes, some slicing varieties, cayenne peppers and pumpkins with sunflowers because I love them and some flowering varieties of plants that the hummingbirds enjoy au naturel. Hopefully I won't have any groundhogs this year ... the relocation process is tedious but we won't get into that until it happens (but the trap is close by in the garage). You know how it goes, each year is different. It could be the weather or bugs this year to drive me crazy. I'm looking forward to the weekend to get starting on the earth part of the plan. The herbs stay on the deck and usually I start over each year ... but more than ever wintered OK outside ... three rosemarys made it, some thyme, peppermint, chives (it always comes back), chamonmille and it looks like some others are trying to initiate a growth burst.

Time to go for a hummingbird check ...