Is there anything special about April? Oh yeah the bees buzzing, flowers blooming, the first rays of sunlight shining down on breeze-cooled grass, all traits of a beautiful April morning. On the right is a snapshot of our
apple tree. This is about 5 years old and just this year we have seen a
lot of flowering on this tree, but due to the high winds, I saw that all these
beautiful white flowers have dropped off. I have read that apple trees
do a lot of flowering before they start to fruit. So maybe next year I am
hoping I can see some fruit ...☺ or maybe just if the bees have pollinated we can be lucky and probably even get some apples this year. 😉
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| Apple Tree |
With this magic in the air, I am sharing few pictures of my garden patch. I have tomato plants transplanted here that we started as seeds back in Feb of this year. Once they were about an inch tall, we transferred them from plastic pots. Below is a mediocre snapshot. The taller plants in the center row are the tomato plants and the ones that are lined up at either side of the tomato plants are the kohlrabis. The last empty square patch is for our beans and peas. We have placed a wireframe beside the square patch that lines up nicely with the white fence board. This will be a good supporting framework for these plants.
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| Tomato and Kohlrabi |
Below is a picture of our pomegranate trees. They are like maybe 4 or 5 years old but haven't started bearing fruit yet. What a bummer :-(. At this point, I see them diligently shedding leaves in winter and coming back to life in Spring. I am wishing that one day they will bear fruits.
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| Pomegranate |
I have some final updates on my composting project. They seem to be doing fairly well in decomposing.
Right now, I am taking care not to overwater them. Too much water will lead to wet, sticky, and smelly compost and the breakdown will not be as expected. And I am hoping that my compost should be ready to be used hopefully by end of next month. Below are some of the snapshots of the different composting projects in our backyard. The first one is my small contribution. The tumbler and the raised bed are maintained by my husband and father-in-law.
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| Composting - terracotta pots |
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| Composting- Raised beds |
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Composting - tumblers
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Finally, I can't end my April 2021 blog post without my book review. So here it goes! The book that I chose for this month's read was "Where The Forest Meets The Stars". This is a debut novel by Glendy Vanderah, which is set in the forests of rural Illinois. Joanne Tealle is a returning research graduate. Jo's research is based on nesting birds and she returns to her research after fighting her own battles with breast cancer and the loss of her mother. She leads a solitary life in these forests and throws herself into her work from day until night until her secluded routine is disrupted by the appearance of a mysterious little girl. She calls herself Ursa and claims to have been sent from the stars to witness five miracles. The little girl seems to be covered in bruises which concerns Jo about the girl's actual situation. With some hesitation and reluctance, Jo lets the girl stay with her until she figures out a way to help. She gets help from her reclusive neighbor Gabriel Nash to figure out this mystery. The more they spend time together with Ursa, they find Ursa to be sagacious, and have a sense of keen discernment.
Finally, when summer nears an end and Ursa gets closer to her fifth miracle, Ursa's dangerous past closes in. Not only does Ursa's past close in but also some of the painful secrets of the others are revealed.
