Low-lying fruit

Berry-picking time is coming!

Low Hanging Fruit

When you plant semi-dwarf trees, everything is low-hanging fruit.

Bees in the buttercups

As spring warms up, the buttercups open, in dense patches of bright yellow flowers. The flowers have bright, glossy petals that can look almost white. Even when they’re not flowering, their leaves have an interesting mottley spottleness. That’s how you know these particular buttercups are Ranunculus repens. It’s not native here, but I like the […]

Hawks!

So I’m about to make a turn from the Fresh Pond Mall onto Alewife Parkway, when I notice a cluster of people across the street. They’re all looking up at something, some with binoculars. One has a telescope. Are they birding? I look up.

Bees in the strawberries

I’m seeing tiny bees everywhere, on the columbines, on the buttercups, on the strawberry flowers. Some are definitely bees when I look closer. One had long antennae and a striped abdomen. One was carrying bright yellow saddlebags of pollen. Some turn out to be flies or beetles or syrphid flies, but none of them stay […]

May sprouts

In the sunny patch where the tulips and daffodils live, all the bulbs have laid down their leaves in a slowly, yellowing mess. I’m of the school that believes in letting the leaves ripen and dry up, so the bulbs can store up food for next year, which means it’s a mess right now. That […]

Herb Garden

Here’s the corner that I’ve designated as the herb garden for this year. From upper left to lower right, to upper right to lower left, it’s Parsley, Dill, Cilantro, and Thyme. And scallions in the middle, but they don’t scan.

Full rain barrel

If you got wet today, I’m sorry. I set up my rain barrel last Monday, all excited about getting some rain to fill it. Well, we got that rain today. In buckets. In barrels. It wasn’t just a frog drowner, it was a rain barrel drowner. I don’t even need all this water. Everything is […]

Three bees

I still have nothing more to say about the flowers from yesterday. I want to talk about the bees, starting with the cuckoo bee up to its neck in dandelion. Like the birds, they lay their eggs in other bees nests so carefully dug and provisioned in the ground. I’ve seen them before, tiny reddish […]

Cinco de flores

Flowers, flowers, flowers, flowers, flowers, What more is there to say?