Welcome to today's #Wednesdaywalk and #Makemesmile challenge by 
Early Morning Spring with the beach grass still golden and the bank of bittersweet still bare of leaf.
It's still very much Spring here, with the golden colors left over from Autumn and Winter and the shore and sea not yet burst into the riot of green and growth that we'll see beginning in a week or so.
The big rock at low tide looks barren and alone in the shorn ochre seagrass, in a month it will be surrounded by verdant green waving fronds of grass and beach plants growing in the warming seaside sun.
Tho there are but hints of the green shore plants beginning to grow on our beach, up in the garden things are starting to take off.
My Little magnolia, which was tight with buds last week, is finally bursting open.
The first day the magnolia buds begin to open.
However, the advantage of a sun filled plant room and a pop up little plastic green house has me enjoying such sights (and tastes) as strawberries in April.
**A ripening hothouse strawberry, started indoors and fruiting in my little pop up greenhouse. **
The fun story of the ripening strawberries is I got a particularly good batch of June Bearing plants last year. I planted them in my fruitcage around the blueberries and new dwarf trees. They did splendidly and as strawberries Will do, sent out many runners.
I simply put little pots of soil under a few choice shoots to make new plants and at the end of the year cut them free from the mother plant and wintered them in my garden room. Then in February I moved them to my plant room, which is a room off my kitchen that is flooded with light in Winter due to the direction of the sun at that time of the year.
And on they grew and began to flower and so now I've ripening strawberries in my little plastic pop up greenhouse outside in chilly April.
It was an experiment to see how far can I stretch growing seasons here in our chilly coastal New England and it seems with the warmth of the house and the help of my little greenhouse, a few many things.
For example, tomatoes:
Tomatoes well on their way in April with the aid of the warmth of the sun on my simple plastic greenhouse. The grass is taking advantage of it as well (tho I'll mulch it in a few weeks.)
Over the past few years I've used little pop up and temporary greenhouses on this property as I am not sure where the best location for a real glass house should be. Gosh, I'm happy I've done so as I've changed the locale every year due to realizing it wasn't right as Summer came on.
Growing blueberries in April, thanks to some Winter care.
I think I'm the most impressed with the blueberries. Sure they are just green now, but my other blueberries are still twigs with just buds getting ready to open.
This little shrub I dug up in Autumn and put in the garage until January. That way it got the cold and freeze of Winter, but then moved it into my plant room after Christmas and here we are.
Blueberries are bee and wind pollinated. This variety (and most) are "self pollinating" tho they usually do better with other varieities , which I have, but I only brought this one in. So it was pollinated by me and a little watercolor brush.
**Nothing like feeling the Spring early when becoming a "bee" in March and pollinating blossoms in your warm sunny plant room.
These tomatoes were also wintered over in my plant room.
Would you believe it that we actually ate from this plant in the winter? Well we did and I've limped it along as the sun moved further away in the plant room but it is now happy in the little greenhouse, enjoying the 'warm' April sun.
I am amazed by the longevity of a tomato plant, but I suppose in many ways it's like a weed. It Wants heat can't stand any cold (so it did not live in the garage for a few months with the blueberry.)
I had to cut some dead off as the season went on, but it would just send out new shoots off the main branch and then begin to flower and fruit. And now, in the greenhouse, it's starting up again.
Sad looking cucumbers, but they'll come along. These were started far too early (I couldn't wait for Spring this year) indoors from seed and they were getting a bit yellow, but I just put them out the other day in the little plastic greenhouse and I can already see new little leaves starting up.
I took the thin metal shelves that come with these little greenhouses you can buy at any store this time of the year and zip-tied them to the greenhouse frame to act as a 'cucumber support'. We'll see how it goes.
Well, I hoped you enjoyed that #Wednesdaywalk and that it did make you smile as it surely did #Makemesmile . I'll close with more feelings of the coming Summer with one of my stone planters just potted up with some hardy succulents.
Again , these are hardy and handle our winter, but I took some last Autumn and put them with the blueberries in the garage, for the cold, then into the plantroom and now they are on the terrace loving the April sunshine (no greenhouse needed for these) but they are far ahead of their brethren who faired the snow and winter all Season long.
Do any of you try forcing plants or making them grow beyond their season? I think it's such fun and really with food crops an interesting experiment especially with food prices on the rise.
One last shot from my 'garden' #wednesdaywalk but I was filling my watering can and the pattern it made on the garden wall was rather striking, like an abstract art water shadow.
And I finished my walk with a hot cuppa on a cool shore, dreaming of more plants to grow and experiment upon.
I hope all of you find a moment to indulge in your passions and do take a moment for a fun #wednesdaywalk and a jolly #makemesmile challenge and join along with us. For more info on it, check out
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