Hello everyone! It’s been a long winter and we have waited patiently for spring for a long time.  Every year at this time it seems like we have the longest springs ever with the least reward.  While we have some mild weather that we’ve all enjoyed, I can’t say I’ve hardly even walked around in a T shirt.  My sister just sent a picture of my nephew doing his homework in a tree in shorts!  Shorts, the last time I saw those was on vacation.

Spring has gone by in a whirlwind of dry weather, serious cold wind, and cool nights.  We have lazily watched the daffodils, then the tulips, bloom and hoped for the best.  When the crabapples kick in we know we are getting there.  My Montmorency cherry tree started to bloom, one tentative bloom last weekend, so I put a time lapse camera out to capture the miracle.  More on that later.  My apples, of which I feel my heart revolves around, have started to open but fortunately been wise enough to take their time.  I do love my crabapples, and I never seem to have to worry about frosts killing them.

So here we are, April 20, and my little Reliance peach is in full bloom, and we had a storm all weekend that has caused a couple of nights of 28 degrees.  John and I dutifully covered the tree on Saturday night with some thick plastic.  We thought we were so smart, but alas, we were no match for the New Mexico storm winds which took it off on Sunday night.  My poor sweet tree, which has produced buckets of peaches on the right year, persevered anyway.  But yesterday things got worse.  Out in the snow again we went, this time with a 100 foot long piece of frost protection cloth that is cut to about four feet wide that we use to cover the small plants at the Inn of the Governor’s in an emergency like this.  I decided to just keep weaving it around like a ribbon.  Remarkably , it stayed on.  The little pink flowers look like they didn’t notice the cold.  I am so pleased! It was quite a layer of frost on everything else this morning.

Plastic tent to protect

I will let you know if we get peaches.  Onward to wait for spring fever to hit!  Red sky at night, gardener’s delight.

Frost cloth wrapped around peach tree, just might have done the job!

The evening after a four day spring storm with several killing frosts.