Blooms and Blossoms

It seems like such a miracle to look outside one morning and see that the fruit trees have blossoms on them. The mornings are still frosty, the rain and wind come in torrents, but the delicate blossoms hold on stubbornly with the promise of juicy goodness.

Cherry blossoms will bring the first tree fruit of the season, sometime in June. We have to be quick to pick though -- raccoons and various birds will be watching carefully, too. (Raspberries and strawberries race the cherries for the first taste of sweetness - who will win this year?)



We have two Italian plum trees, and they've been loaded with fruit the last couple of years. Ants are the critters to watch for here - they love to suck all the juice out of the plums!



The cherry and plum trees are relatively new to the yard. The Old Wise One is the lovely apple tree. She provides wonderful shade in the summer, though her apple bounty has been pretty minimal the last couple of years. Maybe she's peri-menopausal. Here she's framed by the neighbors' gigantic English walnut tree (we benefit from the shade in the summer and the walnuts dropping into our yard in the autumn - and the squirrels love it).


The Red Sails lettuce is doing beautifully. I plant this variety every year - it's beautiful and tasty and quite hardy. We'll be eating thinnings in a couple of weeks. Here's a future salad:











It'll be awhile before we'll be adding peas to the salads, but they are making some progress.

Can you guess what this plant is?