Straight to summer

One week ago, we were on the cusp of spring...

In six days, spring was bypassed and we got an early preview of summer.

With temperatures soaring into the 80s, the garden, trees, lawn, everything burst into greenness. It was bright and hot and, really, a little much, but we tried to take advantage of the warm weather. Among a number of other projects, Evan transplanted some Tiger lilies that were overgrowing their space. We decided a new good location for the overflow was by the side of the barn, where there is a stone wall.

We also dug up the garden some more. I tried to instill some order on one corner of the plot, raked in some compost and planted two rows of shallots. Shallots don't sound all that exciting, but seeing how we cook with a ton of shallots, I could probably plant the entire garden with shallots and it would be worthwhile. I planted two rows -- around 35 bulbs. Here are some sitting in a row, before I pushed them down into the ground and covered the sides of the bulbs with dirt. In the background, to the right, is garlic that we planted last fall.

Finally... we marveled at how much the asparagus grew in the past week, thanks to the heat wave. Here's a photo of some of the asparagus yesterday:

Compare to my post from a week ago (below), when it was just a few inches above the ground. It must have grown, oh, three or four inches, at least, in a week. And in the past day it grew another two inches, or maybe even three.