May Day.

5-1-11 VERMONT: There was still small piles of snow this morning, but none remains tonight. I finished most of the stuff I had to do on this short visit, and the gardens are set for a few weeks. I did repairs around the deck, cleared the culvert and re-built the culvert wall that the snow plows always knock down, fertilized with Holly-Tone, changed water filters and a bunch of small jobs I can’t remember. I didn’t get to the split rail fence repair or veggie bed prep.

Today was beautiful, cloudless, almost warm with a mild breeze. The pond remains very clear with a lot of the bottom visible. I saw no crayfish, but they’re not early risers. The small pond above the big pond is full of tadpoles all about one quarter inch long, the other ponds have only frog egg clusters.

I remember from our Alaska trip that columbine are supposed to like alkaline soil, because we saw them growing around a carbonate deposit. I have never limed them, but today I did pick out a bed near the new mud room and hit all the columbine with lime to see if they do any better than those in other beds. NJ tomorrow.

New blooms: forsythia, bloodroot.