Central Vermont has been experiencing spring weather whiplash. This is what my garden looked like last Sunday (the 21st).
We got over three-quarters of an inch of precipitation, nearly all snow, though it melted within the day. The Thursday before this Sunday snowstorm, it was 74°F and very humid. Thursday night into Friday morning, a raging thunderstorm ripped through the entire state. Sustained winds over 20mph with gusts up to 50. Pea-sized hail that left the ground white. Torrential rain. And nearly continual lightning and thunder. (My cat was freaked out!) Barns lost their roofs. Trees toppled. Power flickered many times though it stayed on in town. And temperatures dropped over forty degrees from Thursday afternoon to Saturday morning, when frost was sugaring my daffodils. Who did not appear much fazed by the weather, to their credit…
By Tuesday the high was only 26° and the low was 18°. The daffodils were less pleased by that… and some lavender, that I’d picked up for the pots on my front steps and planted when it was warm, may have died. The plants are all brittle and grey. We’ll see if they perk back up again… or if I’ll need to go buy more lavender. Which probably would serve me right, planting lavender in April.
It stayed cool for the next few days. It was cool enough on Saturday that I could work outside in a turtleneck and thick sweatshirt. And this was heavy work. It was time to clean the front porch after a season of wind and dirt and road salt. Plus, being me, I had to shuffle the furniture a bit. Hey, it was hard to navigate around the corner with that heavy bench in the way… Which, of course, I put there, because… no idea…
Anyway, I was scrubbing and vacuuming and moving furniture and did not pop a sweat. But on Sunday morning… I went outside wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt to take some flower pictures, and it was too hot! I came back in and realized my house was cooler than my garden. In April. I checked the thermometer and saw it was 65° in the shade.
I suppose this is late April, the tail end of April. It’s Beltaine this Friday! How did that happen already! But still, it was just snowing last week… And in the 70s the week before that… And freezing earlier that week… And… sigh…
So, anyway, it’s warm again. It might stay that way for a while, though we’re potentially in for serious rain starting on Wednesday and lasting apparently forever… Not sure if that’s a real forecast or just AI trying to make current April precipitation fit historical norms. But if it’s real, there may well be flooding this week. The Winooski River is hovering around flood stage and soils are saturated. My lawn is squishy… I don’t want to complain too loudly, given that the entire rest of the country is experiencing record heat and unprecedented drought. But… my garage only just thawed and emptied out after the plugged-drain, ice rink weather of February and March. I haven’t even had time to clean it. I don’t really want another flood muddying up the drain again…
To complicate matters, I’m getting compost delivered on Friday to top off my raised beds. Have you ever moved two cubic yards of compost in the rain? It’s not pleasant. But I guess I’ll cope…
Because I also have to plant my potatoes. Like, now. The first dandelions are just opening, and the maple leaves are the size of a squirrel’s ear. It is definitely time. Plus, I’m not leaving them in the basement in a cardboard box for any length of time. I had seed potatoes from last year. I was all set. But when I went to look in the box a couple weekends ago, it was devoid of potatoes and filled with rodent poop. (There were many shrieks and expletives…) So I placed an emergency order from Fedco, and the box showed up on Saturday. It is sitting on top of my freezer which is, so far, inaccessible to mice; but I’m not counting on that remaining true. I want to get the spuds in the ground as soon as possible.
Now, I have finally bought a mouse trap… I’d been hemming and hawing on that. I don’t like the idea of poison or traditional snap traps. Both seem cruel, and both seem likely to cause harm to my cat whose food and litter box are down in the basement. I also don’t want a live trap. Because you catch one and then what? I empty the rodents out in an empty lot somewhere so they end up in someone else’s basement? And do I have to carry this trap to the dumping ground? Filled with live mice? Sounds like a shriekfest waiting to happen!
So I spent too much money on a box that electrocutes them. Instant death and no way my cat can get into it. (Just in case, I put the trap where the mice can go and she can’t.) I’ve killed three enormous voles… Enormous, probably because they ate all my potatoes… Honestly, the last one barely fit in the trap. Its tail was sticking out. But since that last one, I’ve seen no evidence of rodents down there. I’ve also not heard the usual pitter-patter of rodent feet in my walls. So maybe I’ve won for the moment? But I’m still not leaving the seed potatoes down there…
I shall be planting spuds on Friday evening under the light of the full moon… or maybe under the murk of spring rain. We’ll see. And then I shall be moving compost for the rest of the weekend.
Fitting way to begin May. I know this holiday is supposed to be about maypoles and woodruff wine and the beginning of languid summer, but I’ve always considered it a working holiday. Out in New Mexico, I was planting cucurbits like summer squash and cucumber and melons on May Day. Beans, planted in late March or early April, usually required vine maintenance on May Day, and filet beans were often ready to harvest. May usually saw the end of the unstable windy season, bringing relentless dry heat that desiccated sprouts. So there was the inevitable hauling of water from the rain barrels to the veg beds. And there was always a good deal of clean-up after the winds which left piles of sand and tumbleweeds everywhere… As well as porch furniture dumped in the lawn… from other porches…
Here in Vermont, the garden season is only just beginning. I’ve planted peas though I’ve not seen much happening in that bed. I’ve got happy nightshades in my guest bedroom and the bathtub that I never use, but those can’t go out in the garden for weeks. The greens in the cold frame are sort of puttering along as sprouts, trying to decide if they like the odds on this weather or not. So… all in all, not much has happened yet. I could really use a big bang garden opener. Compost and spuds! Bring it on!
I have managed to hang my fake forsythia wreaths on the gates and next to the front door for luck. We don’t have much hawthorn in Vermont… It doesn’t like Vermont winters. And I wouldn’t plant it if it did. I don’t like the smell, and I already have blackthorn. Don’t need more aggressive spiny things in my jungle. So forsythia is my May flower. This year my bush is even in bloom. Some years it’s already done by May Day. Some years it doesn’t bloom until Mother’s Day. But this year I have a riot of gold in the perennial bed. Still, I only have one bush… So I bought silk flowers and made permanent wreaths. I’m not sure if that brings the same good luck as hanging garlands of live yellow flowers around your entryway, but it’s certainly cheery. That feels like good fortune these days.
And there is more cheer in the garden… After the snowstorm and hard freeze last week, the daffodils and hyacinths apparently decided they needed to make up for lost time. Sweet-scented flowers are everywhere — along with a profusion of wasps and bees and little bugs that refuse to be still long enough for me to identify. How do they know the flowers in my garden are blooming? No idea! But it makes me ever so happy.
Another thing that makes me happy?… Because it was so snowy this year, I left the apple and lilac prunings in a pile by the compost bin rather than try to get them to the ravine behind the garage. So there’s this beaver-lodge-looking pile out back. I was going to move it to the ravine, now that I freed my wheel barrow from the garage ice, but… The pile housing little birds! I’ve seen the wren, a wood thrush, and several goldfinches hopping around it. The goldfinches are particularly cute as they flit from the feeder to the pile, arguing the whole way. I’m sort of surprised the wren is sharing the real estate, but he seems to be fine with multi-family housing this year. Maybe this is a really good nesting site? And the thrush! Have you ever heard a wood thrush? One of the most beautiful sounds I know! If liquid silver had a voice, this would be it. So I’m very happy to be hosting a thrush nest this year… and I might leave the pile there forever… because wood thrushes will return to the same nest site year after year after year. Something to look forward to!
And now here is some more happy from the garden this week…
©Elizabeth Anker 2026
By My Solitary Hearth 