The first sign of spring?

[Rastus]

Welcome back Red!

We've gotten rain and some bad winds with some hail lately.  My 2018 F150 attests to the hail falling as does the crooked neck squash.  192,000 miles it's ok we're on track to get a crate engine some time this year...and a transmission at the same time.  The rain has been great for the garden this year. 

[Big Frank]

My friends have a lot of plants growing in the greenhouse. I don't know if they'll plant before leaving for Memorial Day weekend, or wait until they get back. No one would be home to water them. They would have planted everything already, but when it's 80 degrees one day, and the temperature is supposed to drop down to 40 degrees the next night, they didn't think the time was right. They did plat a butt-load of flowers a couple of days ago. In another week, give or take a little, my "June roses" will be in full bloom.

[Rastus]

Since everyone's relatively healthy this year I planted a couple of dozen trees.  Maybe a dozen apples, 1/2 a dozen of cherry along with nectarines, peaches. a pear or two and a couple of paw paws.  That doesn't count 5 giant sequoia planted this year.  We made up 350-400 feet of roadside with wildflowers, lavendar, marigold, some grapes and blueberries.  There are 8 new hydrangea planted in the yard and across the road along with about a hundred gladiolas.  I spaced out 4 Canna lillies along the fence and put in a 40' x 8' flower bed by the mailbox.  That's not counting the flowerbed along the house, a 90' long tulip bed and a 10'x15' tulip bed up front by the driveway.  It's been a busy time up here...

[Big Frank]

Paw Paw, MI is 135 miles from Flint. One of my army friends lived there. The village is located at the confluence of the east and south branches of the Paw Paw River in the northeast portion of Paw Paw Township. Paw Paw is named for the pawpaw trees which once grew along the Paw Paw River. They grow wild SOMEWHERE in Michigan, but I've never seen one in my whole life. People who know where to find them don't tell anyone about them, so they can get all the pawpaws for themselves. It's North America’s largest native fruit, and I very much want to try them. I didn't know you could plant them yourself, but I don't want to wait 10 years or whatever it takes for a tree to mature. I don't have room for trees anyway.

[alfsauve]

Bell Peppers and Jalapenos in the ground.  Mouth is watering over the thought of having fresh Jalapenos for the summer.

[Sponsor]

[Diamondback]

Paw Paw, MI is 135 miles from Flint. One of my army friends lived there. The village is located at the confluence of the east and south branches of the Paw Paw River in the northeast portion of Paw Paw Township. Paw Paw is named for the pawpaw trees which once grew along the Paw Paw River. They grow wild SOMEWHERE in Michigan, but I've never seen one in my whole life. People who know where to find them don't tell anyone about them, so they can get all the pawpaws for themselves. It's North America’s largest native fruit, and I very much want to try them. I didn't know you could plant them yourself, but I don't want to wait 10 years or whatever it takes for a tree to mature. I don't have room for trees anyway.

https://enjoyer.com/my-hunt-for-the-paw-paw-michigans-elusive-tropical-fruit/

[Big Frank]

Thanks, Diamondback. Boone's Pawpaw Orchard is a 67 minute drive from my house. Google Maps has it listed as temporarily closed. He grows antique apples, cornel berries, and persimmons, too. I never heard of cornels, but they're a fruit in the dogwood family, and they look similar to coffee cherries when they're ripe. Nash Nurseries is only a 32 minute drive away. The city of Owosso is due west down the state highway I live 1/2 a block from. The nursery is about 10 miles south of downtown which is the only part of the city I'm slightly familiar with. They have a dozen different varieties of pawpaws.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornus_mas

https://www.nashnurseries.com/index



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OL1K1hhBWg


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbjxtvxAudo

[Rastus]

I have never seen a paw paw tree until I planted those.  I heard about them as a kid from the "old folks" but the trees were no where to be found when I was growing up.  I don't think they were that good or there would have been an effort to keep some around.

Regardless, I'm trying to get a couple of them going.  I understand they are native around where I am and that they like to grow in the bottoms in a little shade.

[PegLeg45]

Bell Peppers and Jalapenos in the ground.  Mouth is watering over the thought of having fresh Jalapenos for the summer.

We had some fresh jalapenos and banana peppers fried yesterday with fresh fish.
90°+ here and the garden is hitting full stride. Red taters and zucchini is rampant but no tomatoes or cucumbers quite yet.

[Big Frank]

It looked like my roses weren't going to bloom until June this year, after several years of opening in the last 2 weeks of May. We had a lot of cold weather, but a few of them bloomed on the last day of May. Here they are yesterday at a quarter after 4 in the afternoon. I emailed the pic to my friend's wife yesterday and said my girls were looking pretty good this year. She texted back that her girls weren't looking so good. I texted back, "No comment.", with a big grin.   I thought she was going to call me an a--hole or something, but she just sent her avatar making a funny face at me.   I just mowed the front yard and lifted a bunch of roses up and set the branches on the chain-link fence so I could mow under them and see what I was doing. I lowered them back down when I was done. I managed to cut one off with the mower and set in on top of my mailbox for now. There seem to be a lot more today than yesterday when I took the pic.