Even as the cold rains kept falling from February into early March, and as the snows kept piling up in the Sierra, and as temps in our Valley rarely got above 48, spring was beginning east and west of the Sacramento River. I mean, what better harbingers of that than the Eurasian collared doves on a branch of the cherry plum tree on March 7?

Now, as the end of the month approaches and the temps have risen into the 60s (with a few in the low 70s in mid month), spring is almost fully upon us–even though the cold rains keep coming a few days a week (24 inches total for the rainy season, about 6 inches above normal for this time of year). Really, the combination of moisture and some sunny days has been ideal for new growth. So overall, March 2019 has been your pretty typical first spring month in NorCal.

Here are some of the headliners in our garden:

Broccoli. I’ve been telling and showing the story of the stir-fry broccoli for months now. The tender broccolini florets have been a bumper crop from five plants, and still in early March the harvest kept coming (see photo, right):

But as the month wore on, the inevitable happened: those cute, fuzzy little budlets on the florets did what flowers are supposed to do. They bloomed–bright little yellow suns by the hundreds. See below:

Yet, even in the photo of the yellow flowers, you can see broccolini spears still appearing, and the florets are as tasty as ever. The broccoli Marches on!

Cherry Plum. The dominant stars of March are the two cherry plum trees (one ours, one our neighbor’s) that shadow the garden and that explode in white-pink-red blooms in the middle of the month. (See the photo at the top of the entry and the panorama below.)

The collared doves that billed and cooed on those branches early in the month made their nest within that cloud of blossoms. Now, at month’s end, the blossoms have fallen to earth and the trees are covered in their rich maroon leaves. On the ground, the petals created a blanket of pink that for two weeks gave a snowy look to the entire garden:

Indeed, they still give a candy sprinkles touch to the calla lilies that glow in the back garden:

Oranges and Lemons. The harvest of meyer lemons is now done, with the final picking about March 20. We had almost 200 for the season, roughly the same as in the past three years, as the mature bush has grown little in that time. Most of the lemons went for lemonade or the orange juice/lemonade combo, but Jean has frozen two jars of the juice for lemon pies and her delicious lemon blueberry bread.

There are still oranges on our tree, perhaps 20, with the total for the season a splendid 340. As with the lemons, most of the fruit has been squeezed for juice, with some of the oranges given to the local food bank.  Though I’ve picked many from the tree, most of the fruit has been gleaned from the ground the day it has fallen. Because this has been an unusually rainy few months, as noted above, the oranges come down more often, and gleaning must be done promptly before the fruit turns to mush.

Here’s the latest gleaning and picking:

…and here’s (below) the densest cluster of remaining fruit. As always this time of year, the ripe oranges share space on the tree with the first buds of what will be next year’s crop:

Preview of What’s to Come in April

Apricots. This first fruit harvest of the year will come in May, but now the leafed-out tree is studded with tiny green fruit:

 

 

Peaches

Once the peach leaves fall in October and November and make a yellow carpet across the garden, the mature tree looks naked and spindly through the winter, and one wonders if another crop will come. But in later March, the first blossoms appear and by the end of the month, the tree is covered in blossoms and fresh new leaves. The harvest will not be until late June and early July:

Roses and Lemons. Just after the last meyer lemon was picked, the first buds of the new blossoms, which will become the new fruit, appeared. The bush will be in full bloom in April:

Meanwhile, even though the occasional rose appears throughout the winter on many of our seventeen bushes, the real explosion will occur in April, as the many buds on this red rose promise:

A Few More March Garden Pix