New arrivals

The ripening of the first strawberries and snap peas this week marks the transition from the early spring salad days to what will rapidly become summer’s succession of many varied vegetables and berries.

Planting sugar snap peas always comes with a burst of optimism, a chance to get out in the garden on the first warm day in March

I take the instructions “as soon as the ground can be worked” literally, pushing seeds into just thawed earth until my index finger is numb. Richard always reminds me that we still have many frosts and likely snow still to come. I always refuse to listen. Depending on the year, it may be a while before the seeds germinate, but one never knows when we’ll have an early spring. I want to be ready.

The seeds get planted along many of the cages protecting the young fruit trees through the winter; any climbing surface is fair game. I also set up some wire frames just for them. One can’t have too many snap peas. Growing vertically, they also offer pretty flowers before their sweet, crunchy pods, take little space in the garden, and are gone by early summer, turning over their space to other plants that do most of their growing later in the season.

The strawberries, perennials that require no replanting, are also spread throughout the yard. We used to have a dedicated strawberry patch. It was exciting for the few weeks that the strawberries flowered and fruited, and then offered little of interest for the rest of the season, merely taking up valuable space. Now, the strawberries are planted as a groundcover along the border of several perennial beds. They look especially pretty with the edible Johnny-Jump-Up (viola) flowers peeking out from beneath the larger strawberry leaves. This fall, I’m going to see what I can do to help the self-seeding violas spread more widely.

Each plant produces less fruit this way than when hilled for maximum production. But we can support far more plants, with far less work, than we would have room for in a dedicated bed. And it’s fun to watch guests pause at the unexpected sight of a ripening red strawberry along the path. As these plants send out runners later in the summer and root new plants, we’ll continue to spread them to more borders.

Last but not least, the blueberries and blackberries are in flower. Left: Blackberry flowers. Below left: a young blueberry with its first small white flowers, in front of purple Sweet Dames Rocket (a native woodland phlox). Below right: blackberries, climbing over the stone wall.

Both are native woodland berries in this part of the world. The blueberries we planted. The blackberries we simply “adopt,” letting them grow (along with the native black-cap raspberries) out into the sunnier spots along the woods’ edge.

The hummingbird just whirred by, reminding me that it’s time to stop writing and get to work.