Thus far, 2011's weather is truly strange. In early January, La Nina shut down the tropical jet that brought us so much rain early on, and it's been nothing but high pressure and sunshine for weeks, punctuated by only a couple of rain events (currently 25.56" ytd). That said, we're looking at some confused plants over here. Our bell bean cover crop is quickly reaching maturity and in places is already in bloom and in need of a haircut. Our avocados are getting ready to flower already. The pile of fruit pictured above is from the 4th time I went through removing fruit this year (we are letting them size up another year before setting a crop). This final round coincided with their winter pruning--to get lower branches off the wet ground-- and training--to make sure they're following just one leader as it were. The citrus was likewise trimmed up, and while it was somewhat slow in coming on this year due to last year's June gloom, is now going gangbusters. The plums have decided it's spring already and are covered in blossoms. The pomegranates also leafed out in the 2 day span it took me to prune them. Even stranger, grapes are breaking buds next to kiwis that have yet to go to bed.
The warmth has helped our starts come up in the greenhouse. Onions and tomatoes are pictured above. All of the animals are appreciating this weather as well. Our ducks are laying like it's summer, and cats and dog alike are gravitating towards shade. The coast newt pictured above decided to lay her eggs up and down the leaf filter on our smaller pond system. I relocated her and them to the opposite side so that the babies aren't sucked into the filter when they hatch out. The final shots are of landscape plants, many of which are blooming long before is typical. Cold rain out of the Gulf of Alaska arrives this Monday (bye bye plum blossoms), and it looks like it plans to stick around...
