By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson

Photo: broken_images / flickr

Last autumn I noted the dearth of acorns here, an observation confirmed by the Washington Post, who said the situation prevails throughout New England, up to Nova Scotia, and into the Midwest.

Today I found them.  The party of field mice that spend the winter in our greenhouse stored them in an open bag of topsoil. The acorns — 40, maybe 50, of them — had about a 50% germination rate (my heirloom seeds should only do as well) and I have a wealth of well-rooted baby oak trees, seedlings about 5 inches high, roots about 8 inches long.

We’re blessed with oaks here, but I can’t resist planting a couple of the seedlings. As to the rest, I’ve posted about them on our town’s e-mail list (the closest we get to a local newspaper) and offered to bring them to tonight’s Annual Town Meeting, where people can help themselves.

I’ve already had a call from one woman who wants six, and I’ve potted them up for her in yogurt containers.  I really hate the thought of putting those nobody wants on the compost pile, but that’s their fate, I fear.

Two other seasonal oddities:

The leaves are off the beech tree (my indisputable sign of spring) a week early. Only a week, which surprises me, since everything else is at least two weeks ahead of time.

Asparagus are coming up.  This is creepy.  Around here, asparagus sprout up in June, not early May. I fear these impatient ones are in for a shock. A hard frost in May is not uncommon here.

Posted on May 5th, 2009 by Miryam Ehrlich Williamson
Filed under: Uncategorized