Spring has sprung!

I'm on spring break this week and what better time to get the garden ready. The compost isn't as much as predicted; I have beans and potatoes growing in it right now and I am transplanting all of those as I find them. I plan on renewing the strawberry patch and setting in tomatoes, peppers and red cabbage. If I do a little each day, I won't be so overwhelmed.

My peach tree is now budding. Honey bees are going crazy in the front yard around the two trees. The rosemary shrub is also in bloom and this year I'm going to make some cuttings and propagate the shrubs up front to plant younger ones in the back. The two trees I see no new growth for now are my mesquite and the palo verde tree. Even my mimosa tree is budding.

I transplanted ten bean plants from the germination set. I'm finding that although the germination set helps the seeds sprout fast, the plants shoot up long and lanky. I hope they make the transplant. All the old potato cuttings I transplanted from the compost pile died except for one, which looks like it set and will grow in place.

It reached close to 90F today in Tucson, mid 80s here.

My Yellow Bird of Paradise shrubs look like they took a heavy beating from the deep freeze. The tips on both shrubs look and feel dead. The fruitless mulberry tree is also lifeless, as are my bottlebrush tree, my tecoma stans and all the oleander trees. One Russian sage is coming back. My rosemary's in bloom. The verdana all seem ready to be cut close to the ground to stimulate new growth. The dead stuff is excuse enough to start replanting my front yard to a more native plant habitat.

I'm still holding out on our palm tree. The palm must be 30 years old and it's hard to know from my vantage point if the palm survived the freeze as it's too high up to be able to check its internal stalk for new growth. But all the exterior fronds are dead and hanging on, yet birds are still using the palm as their nest. I saw a redtailed hawk chase a ringneck dove today from the palm tree. This time the dove made it, but next time it may not be so lucky. I'd hate to release my dove into such a dangerous environment, but keeping it encaged is perhaps inhumane as well.