Spring has sprung! Freebee plants to dig

Today I finished planting the peas around my circular pea fence surrounded by tomato plants. It's time to work hard this lovely weekend on getting all the peas planted. I hope I harvest many this year! (as I have every year except last year for decades... may the woodchucks spare us!)
The wall-of-waters around the tomato plants have withstood the winds remarkably well, but two fell over today! Fortunately the tomato plants, now about a foot high, are remarkably resilient to falling WOWs. Amazingly, I now have a tomato FLOWER!!! Can this survive? How early can fresh tomatoes be harvested in NJ these days?

The raspberry bushes are showing green tidbits, so it's time to cut off the rest, which has pronounced itself dead. The fruit trees are budding, and the Macintosh actually showed some red in its blossoms today. The fruits trees were pruned and sprayed in February, but picking up the fallen branches is a nice activity for these lovely days now that the snow is gone.

The strawberry plants inform me they think they will take over my front yard. I have other plans for the yard, and I need help in removing the strawberry plants. Digging them hurts my wrists, but last year I discovered that visitors are willing to dig strawberry plants for me if I will let them take them home. It seems like a good trade! They probably won't bear this year, but next year, if you put them in a not-totally-shady place, you will probably have the first of a mighty tasty crop. I discovered a couple years ago that if you pick them when they are just turning red-pink, they ripen almost overnight on the counter and are delicious -- and humans eat them instead of birds, slugs, and squirrels!

I plan to be available tomorrow morning from 9:30 to 10:30 AM at 56 Gordonhurst for visitors who want to take home strawberry plants. I will provide trowels and a shovel, but you should bring a container in which to take them home, either a pot or a plastic bag. There are some Dutch iris, given to me by Mrs. Stroili, in my back yard that can be dug up too if anyone wants them. They are much smaller than the big Siberian irises, but a pretty purple and a week earlier.

I still have five containers of celery seedlings on the left of the front steps that can be picked up at any time. I will probably put some garlic there again, if I get a chance to edit it. Someone told me that garlic would keep away woodchucks, so I scattered it around my garden. It didn't have the desired effect, but I do have lots of garlic descended from that one bulb I bought years ago! I suspect that each garlic taken may have similar potential for the future.

Alas, the leaf blowers are back, interfering with our beautiful spring. The users seem oblivious to the damage to the soil, the health and happiness of neighbors, or the future of the human race (pollution and climate change). As I try to enjoy this glorious weather despite them, I keep remembering Puck's observation, "Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

Pat