Early Signs of Spring!

After a long winter we always have our eyes peeled for signs that Spring is on its way.  Now that is a strange idiom, isn't it?  Keep your eyes peeled?  That sounds painful.  I searched to try to find the origin of this torturous sounding phrase and found it at Worldwidewords.org.

From about the 17th century on, pill was commonly spelt peel and took on the sense of “to remove or strip” in the weakened sense of removing an outer covering, such as a fruit. The figurative sense of keeping alert, by removing any covering of the eye that might impede vision, seems to have appeared in the US about 1850.

Anyway, I didn't mean to get off the subject there.  We've been anxiously awaiting Spring.  The old-timers say that Spring isn't here until the pecan trees begin putting on leaves, but there is some activity, if you look around, that lets you know that it is quickly approaching.  The first in our area being peach blossoms.  The peach tree itself won't have any leaves at all, but the branches will be heavy laden with the most beautiful pink flowers.

Peach trees adorned in pink

A light rain was still falling as I walked around the trees, inspecting the blooms with visions of peach cobbler dancing in my head. You can see the drops of rain cascading off of the flowers.  Though the sky is dull and gray, the brightness of the peach flowers brightens the day.

Peaches are one of the first things to bloom and because of that, they are subject to freeze. Sometimes late freezes come along during the flowering stage and severely damage the crop.  You can see that the blooms are in all different stages - some in full bloom and some still budding.  The day I took this picture, it was cool and raining.  A few days later, it warmed and our bees were buzzing around the blossoms.  They are happy it is Spring, too!

I was listening to a gardening show on the radio the other day that Dan Gill from the LSU AgCenter broadcasts.  More information about him and his radio show by clicking here.  You can really learn a lot from listening.  A caller called in and asked when is the best time to fertilize Satsuma and other citrus trees.  Since they bloom in March, Dan Gill told them the best time is in February.

I have some good composted chicken litter and in the middle of February, I pulled a wagon around the yard and broadcast some around the base of each tree.  A providential rain fell the very next day. It was not a driving rain, but a good soaking one that allowed the fertility of the chicken litter to gently work itself into the soil and come in contact with the roots.

As you can tell from the photo below, the tree enjoyed the fertilizer and is putting on bright, new leaf growth.  But that's not the only thing it's putting on.

Right behind the new leaves are a whole bevy of white citrus blooms.  They are just buds now, but you can see the white color of the soon-to-be flowers.  Once they open, if you're looking for me, I can likely be found around one of the citrus trees, smelling the orange blossoms.  What a fragrance!

Last but not least, on my search for Spring was our Japanese Magnolia.  Like the peach, this tree puts on blooms before any leaves appear.  The flowers are similar to the magnolia bloom, albeit smaller and pink.  We call this Laura Lee's tree (our daughter).  We planted it for her and made the mistake of planting it too close to the septic lines causing us severe plumbing problems.  They say you learn from your mistakes, so we chalked it up to a good learning experience.  Now the plumbing problems are behind us and the tree keeps giving us beautiful blooms each year, so I guess all's good.

If you open up the bloom and smell, it has a real nice fragrance - crisp and clean.

There will of course be numerous signs of Spring with each passing day as temperatures are already in the upper 70's and low 80's.  The official first day of Spring begins on March 20th.  Spring is very short in South Louisiana, so we relish every minute. Summer doesn't officially begin until June 21, but let me tell you, it FEELS like summer long before that date.