Yesterday was a prime garden day. One of those too rare days when the weather is perfect, the schedule open and the motivation on location. Opening our front door, a couple of song-dueling robins opened the early morning. I noted them on our Wildlife Watch checklist along with a couple of other Watch list items and then began a day of work outside.

This year, it's been more difficult than usual to find time to prepare and plant our big vegetable garden. We are, even after yesterday's progress, weeks away from planting the dozens of pepper and tomatos plants that only Saturday night were transplanted into their interim quarters before they will find real soil for their roots in three weeks or so. We potted up over 100 of those little plants as well as dozens of tropical milkweeds-- monarch caterpillar food and brilliant yellow and orange flowers in August.

Much later on this cool Sunday afternoon of a day that included the following; gently extricating a garter snake from a haphazard stack of TREX boards, discovering a cottontail rabbit nest with 5 babies in the annual rye green manure patch I'd just weed-whacked, viewing only our second American painted lady butterfly of the year prospecting our Backyard Habitat for pussytoes plants to lay her eggs upon, we finish preparing the long trench beyond the raspberries and get ready to welcome its seasonal residents; spud starts!

Four varieties of potatoes, each piece sprouting greenish for the bakers and Yukon Golds or red for the remaining two varieties, are carefully placed cut side down and sprouts up in the trench's bottom. Our friend Howard, minutes after appearing at our house via his motorcyle, graciously jumped into action and carefully pulled about four inches of soil over the tallest sprouts. Tonight we'll water them in. In two weeks, we hope to see the first leaves emerging from the twenty foot long row.

Despite the long period until harvesting and the anticipated summer bouts battling the notorious potato beetles, I smile as I think about the time to dig. Finding buried spud treasure reminds me of childhood Easter egg hunts. Or hunting earthworms with my Dad at night. I get a littlel giddy looking ahead for that joy and wonder and anticipation that comes with each plunge of the spading fork as big and small, oval and round spuds and always a few odd ball configurations (Hey, that one's gotta be my first pet parakeet, Pecky, back in high carb configuration as a Red Norland) appear, eyes blinded on the soil surface after months of growing below.

The gardening guide here in the Washington DC metropolitan area suggests that you can get your potato starts in the ground as early as St. Patrick's Day in a normal year. I can't recall ever having one of those however. Usually around April 10 is a good time here to plant just east of the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains. But yesterday's planting was May 6.

I could call this late planting procrastination. I am very good at procrastinating. I have developed it into a high art form. But this morning, after waiting for almost 5 minutes for the auto defroster to clear my windows so I could see where I would be driving over the next hour, I wasn't calling this late entry into potato farming procrastination. It was foresight!

Yesterday was a garden day. One of those too rare days when the weather is perfect, the schedule open and the motivation available. A couple song-dueling robins opened the early morning. I noted them on our Wildlife Watch checklist and the day began.

This year, it's been exceedingly difficult to find time to prepare and plant our big vegetable garden. We are, even after yesterday's progress, weeks away from planting the dozens of pepper and tomatos plants that only Saturday night were transplanted into their interim quarters before finding real dirt for their roots in in three weeks or so.

Late on a cool Sunday afternoon of a day that included the following; gently extricating a garter snake from a haphazard stack of TREX boards, discovering a cottontail rabbit nest with 5 babies in the annual rye green manure patch I'd just weed whacked, viewing only our second American painted lady butterfly of the year prospecting our Backyard Habitat for pussytoes plants to lay her eggs upon, we finish preparing the long trench beyond the raspberries and get ready to welcome its seasonal residents; spud starts!

Four varieties of potatoes, each piece sprouting greenish for the bakers and Yukon Golds or red for the remaining two varieties, are carefully placed cut side down and sprouts up in the trench's bottom. Our friend Howard, minutes after appearing at our house via his motorcyle, graciously jumped into action and carefully pulled about four inches of soil over the tallest sprouts. Tonight we'll water them in. In two weeks, we hope to see the first leaves emerging from the twenty foot long row.

Despite the long period until harvesting and the anticipated summer bouts battling the notorious potato beetles, I smile as I think about the time to dig. Finding buried spud treasure reminds me of childhood Easter egg hunts. I get a littlel giddy looking ahead to the joy and wonder and anticipation that comes with each plunge of the spading fork as big and small, oval and round spuds and always a few odd ball configurations (Hey, that one's gotta be my first pet parakeet, Pecky, back in high carb configuration as a Red Norland) appear, eyes blinded on the soil surface after months of growing below.

The gardening guide here in the Washington DC metropol

Juneuary Bloomin' is Stinkin'

The year 2007 has come in like a March lamb-- looking for and finding spring break. There isn't much to expect from March when it really gets here weeks from now.

The morning weather forecast today included a now rare term- snow shower- that may grace nearby mountains tomorrow evening. We'll see if the season yet turns seasonal.

Seems that no matter where you find your information here in Washington DC; the papers, on the radio and TV, in blog postings, and in your own backyard, the pervasive mild weather is causing people to ponder global warming.

Whether the past two months of warmth is a manifestation of progressive planetary heating or not (I see too much out of doors not to believe it), our normal, cold, late fall settling into winter with those subfreezing mornings and blustery PM northwest winds hitting you in the face on the way out of the office has not yet arrived.

El Nino is part of the explanation for record highs these past weeks throughout the northeast and northcentral states but even meteorologists are beginning to include "global warming" in their explanations of the strange warmth that has gripped the landscape.

For every flower that prematurely comes into bloom now, there is one less flower and likely a reduced number of seeds and fruit that will feed wildlife or people in spring and summer. When astronomical spring in the northern hemisphere arrives just past midnight on March 21, 2007, it is likely that we'll see fewer flowers than "normal" and although we'll likely be disappointed and concerned, bees and butterflies have a lot more at stake. They'll likely be facing a food shortage!

Most plant-focused people talk about the crocuses, daffodils and Yoshino cherries in bloom in the nation's capital. I'm thinking skunk cabbage, the first of the native spring flowers to bloom in our area. Normally, bloom is the last week of January or first few weeks in February. That has changing noticeably over the past thirty years however.

Last week (January 4) when a colleague asked if I had a digital image of this swamp plant--a Philodendron relative-- in bloom, I told her no. And then on a hunch, I walked a few hundred yards from the office to our local red maple seep and found over a dozen blooming in our sixty degree temperatures. Not only were the flowers open, but the small flies they rely upon for pollination were visiting their flowers. Read more about skunk cabbage and phenology.

The flowers of skunk cabbage as well as the spathe, that awesome purple and green shield over the flower, AND the plant's leaves do smell somewhat unpleasant if you crush them. So be careful when you go out to look for this first bloomer.

Spring in January is what really stinks!

Killer Frost and Found Caterpillars

The past week's weather dealt our vegetable gardens and Backyard Wildlife Habitat that shock and schedule-adjustor known as the "first killing frost." Gone are the tomatoes, peppers, marigolds and okra. The early morning air went well beyond frost to freeze. What had been sweet basil and tropical milkweed is now mush as the thermometer registered its first of the season 20 degree F. reading.

This event is both dreaded and eagerly anticipated. Such is gardening schizophrenia. Summer's gardens linger, looking rattier with every early morning brush with frost. When the juncos and white-throated sparrows que up at the feeders, they tell me the winter is approaching even if I am more elated at finding that last bunch of green beans or the final cuke of the garden season.

I don't want to give up the last fresh basil. Discovered dozens of cherry tomatoes postpone the first purchase of marginally edible store-bought tomatoes. There is joy however in accepting what is inevitable (well, ok, it's not inevitable given the warming climate, lateness of recent killer frosts and the seasonal paucity of snow), and I can then move ahead with clean up, mulching, planting of a winter cover crop and other chores postponed until IT, the killer frost, occurs.

Dill has become the garden's most welcome weed. It is frost-hardy, showing little effect from the first big freeze. It is tasty as leaf and seed. It returns year after year with no effort on my part. The blooms attract small pollinating flies, bees and wasps. Most notably, it is the home of dozens of black swallowtail caterpillars over the course of the year's two or three generations of this exotic plant. After this frost, the swallowtail "cats" reappeared for perhaps the last feeding before their final molt and overwintering as pupae.

One other much larger caterpillar appeared during these last days of summer-like weather. I carefully picked up and then carried the large green insect dotted with red on my shoulder. It crawled down my shirt sleeve before exiting in suitable habitat. Although assuring myself that it would likely be better off wandering through tree-edge meadows and forming its cocoon on its schedule, I had hoped to photograph it.

The following day, returning to the locality where it had left me, I found it again wandering off to construct its overwintering shelter. I once more grabbed it, placed it in my lunch bowel, snapped its photo, above, in very unchararcteristic habitat, and then immediatley released it.

This large, late caterpillar will emerge next April or May as a beautiful, lime green luna moth.

NWF® The Backyard NaturalistTM

Snags, Escorts and Migration

My office window looks out over the parking lot of the NWF headquarters. Not a great vantage point for a naturalist?

The view is terrific. And we designed it that way. As you build your Backyard Wildlife Habitat, keep in mind how you might be viewing the wildlife outside from the comfort of your kitchen, work desk, conference room, living room or study.

NWF moved to its new headquarters site about 7 years ago. We decided to keep a small patch of woods at our entrance. It's become a beacon for migrants passing through and a watch tower for a variety of resident and nesting birds.

This morning, I watched as a young Northern Harrier passed through our landscape. A group of eight European starlings and a number of migrating blue jays took off from their vantage point on the snags and tree tops and escorted the possible predator off our property.

Without these tall trees and snags attracting a variety of birds and without the forethought of how these landscape elements might later help us enjoy the wildlife of our headquarters habitat, I might have looked out over parked vehicles and little else this morning.

Advice from The Backyard Naturalist

Attracting Wildlife is Easier Than You Might Think

Dear Friends,

On behalf of NWF, I welcome you to The Backyard Naturalist blog.

Many people love the idea of having their own backyard wildlife sanctuary -- full of birds, butterflies and other creatures. The good news is my organization, the National Wildlife Federation, has just the program for them. The NWF Backyard Wildlife Habitat program is based on four simple ideas. Animals need food, water, cover and a place to raise young. This seems a little intimidating to some people I talk to on my travels around the country but it is really fairly simple.

You can start with the basics; put out a bird feeder, plant a berry-producing shrub, set up a birdbath and place a bird house in appropriate habitat. You will be amazed at how these simple steps will result in birds and other wildlife creatures coming to your yard, patio or deck. To learn more about how to have your own certified backyard wildlife habitat visit the National Wildlife Federation's website