I plant out peas in the first nice weather after about 20 Feb. By nice, I mean days when the lows are projected to be consistently above or just at freezing for several days in a row. Interestingly, this usually coincides with the blooming of the trout lilies out back—the first sign, for me anyway, that spring is actually approaching.
For some people, Spring’s herald is the blooming of the daffodils, crocus, snowdrops, or forsythia. My daffodils and crocus have been up for a couple of weeks (or more!) already, and since they’ve come up the temperatures have dropped crazily into the teens at least once. It’s hard to think “Spring” when the front steps creak with cold when I leave the house.
However, I’ve been watching the trout lilies, and several fat buds have been pushed up from the emerging leaves out near the compost pile. They’ve been just waiting there, for about a week, in which the low temperatures have been in the low-to-mid twenties. The forecast is for warmer weather later this coming week. I expect those buds to break open when that happens. Then, I will be out planting peas.
