Here in Pennsylvania, we got to enjoy our annual 72 hours of spring before someone flipped the switch, and we jumped right into summer. I’ve lived in Pennsylvania now for fifteen years, and it’s always the same. 

We mill around in the cold, damp weather of early March, wondering, hoping spring will come. Then April teases us with a few days of beautiful weather before reminding us (usually quite forcefully) that we are indeed not out of the woods yet as far as winter weather goes.

 

May comes along, and we start to get antsy, “Look, it’s May; we should have consistently nice weather by now.”
 

 

The breeze becomes softer, and the temperature is nice enough to skip the light jacket you’ve grown accustomed to taking with you everywhere. Flowers begin to pop up. You see people tentatively wearing shorts and leaving windows open to let the fresh spring air in. 

 

 

And then 72 hours later, spring is over, and it’s blazing hot until November.

Ah well, that’s how it goes, I suppose. My dad always says, “You can’t complain about the weather; just give it fifteen minutes; it’ll change again.”
 

 

I was out making my morning rounds in my garden this week when I noticed my beautiful spinach had tenants – leaf miners. Well, shoot. I’ve been attending to those little tunneling buggers all week, and I’ll have a post next week sharing how to get rid of them.

The aphids have shown up too. I found them on my eggplants, a few pepper plants and several herbs. I mixed up a batch of insecticidal soap made with water and castile soap and sprayed only my borage down for now. It was looking pretty sad. 

I want to give the beneficial insects in the area a chance to handle the aphids for me before I intervene further. Nature has a way of taking care of things if we’re patient. 
 

 

You know we enjoy hearing from you. We want to start sharing Rural Sprout Reader’s gardens in our Sunday newsletter. Email me at tracey@ruralsprout.com with a gardening photo for a chance to have it featured in our weekly newsletter.