{"id":767,"date":"2018-04-27T20:50:57","date_gmt":"2018-04-27T20:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/?p=767"},"modified":"2018-04-28T00:55:54","modified_gmt":"2018-04-28T00:55:54","slug":"spring-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/2018\/04\/27\/spring-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring effect in the backyard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night, we pulled the cover off the grill \u2014 a major sign of spring for us. As Tom was perfecting our dinner, I walked around to check the footsteps of spring in the yard. It has been raining all day and everything looked so clean and new.<\/p>\n

Forsythias are actually nothing new \u2014 they are everywhere. But it\u2019s still nice to see the color coming up after the grime of winter.<\/p>\n

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For years we\u2019ve been struggling with the dusty patch in the back of the yard. Now, it finally has a solid vinca cover. During summer, it keeps bright green. In spring, these flowers make it almost all purple and so uplifting.<\/p>\n

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A few years ago, we\u2019ve started our own fruit orchard mixing cherries with plums. Last year, there was quite a good amount of sour cherries. Plums bloom well but then they fold.<\/p>\n

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This year, our apple trees are turning five. Tom seems to be winning his battle with the local deer population: the trees now have not only leaves, they also bloom and, last year, we\u2019ve enjoyed a small harvest.<\/p>\n

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Never ending struggle with the birds. These blueberries are at least a decade old but look like we\u2019ve planted them yesterday. Do we have berries? Ha! Birds know how to get them through the net. Somehow we still keep our hopes and don\u2019t have the heart to pull the bushes out.<\/p>\n

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And the lilac time is coming up. Every year, we get more and more flowers. They were my mother\u2019s favorite. Glad lilacs are growing and creating a nice private room around our front porch. Soon, very soon.<\/p>\n

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The dogwood tree always blooms on my birthday. But this year, everything is late which is not a bad thing: we\u2019ll have these flowers for longer. Barbara gave us this tree the year my mom passed away. When it blooms, it’s my mom wishing me happy birthday opening the flowers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Last weekend, I\u2019ve added a few peonies to the previously dinky flower bed. My older peonies were not doing that great. Let\u2019s see what happens with the new ones. It\u2019s another connection with my mom: on her birthdays, she was always happily drowning in peonies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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We have not done much for our vegetable garden: cleaned it up and mulched the walks between the patches \u2014 that\u2019s about it. Our perennial staples have already popped up. Horseradish: using its root in winter as a condiment and leaves during summer for pickling.<\/p>\n

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Sorrel \u2014 my memories of childhood and our summer house in Zhavoronki, i.e. Larks, a village in the suburbs of Moscow. And the best Russian summer soup.<\/p>\n

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Scallions. Somehow this bush survives and thrives all year round. Don\u2019t even remember how old it is. It\u2019s so prolific \u2014 it\u2019s crazy! Makes me think of Stranger Things and the demogorgon. This is just a little nothing of the actual thing.<\/p>\n

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For years, we\u2019ve been planting peas to no result. But we don\u2019t give up. Here\u2019s another try. They are coming up! Keeping fingers crossed.<\/p>\n

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Last weekend we\u2019ve made quite an exciting addition to our garden: black currants, red currants, and gooseberries. That\u2019s another influence of my Russian heritage. But it’s a whole another story…\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night, we pulled the cover off the grill \u2014 a major sign of spring for us. As Tom was perfecting our dinner, I walked around to check the footsteps of spring in the yard. It has been raining all day and everything looked so …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comfort-zone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":810,"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions\/810"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliacore.com\/beyondthebarre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}