outdoorsy treasures

After a slow, cold, wet spring, Wisconsin finally got a blast of proper balmy weather! I spent last weekend outside making some sweet discoveries.

A year ago my favorite nature preserve underwent extensive logging. I felt sad to see the trees go, but many were dead from disease and compromised the health of other trees. Naturally, losing so much canopy meant many new grasses and plants took over the ground below and I worried I'd seen the end of the trillium. Trillium are these rare, dainty 3-petaled flowers that bloom first thing in spring. They grow in woodland areas, usually on hillsides, and Purdy is one of the few places I've encountered them. Trillium rare because they grow slowly. Sometimes they take over five years to bloom. If you see a patch of them, cherish it. Those plants are at least a decade old and will bring you pleasure for many years to come if you leave them undisturbed.

Imagine my excitement when I hit the trail last weekend and came across this:

Charming and difficult to find: Trillium still grows. Not as prolific as before, but not gone.

My next big discovery appeared in my compost bin. As many folks know, I'm a lazy composter. I collect our food waste (veg and fruit scraps, melon rinds, rotting lettuce, egg shells, dried leaves from houseplants, etc.) in an old lidded pot near my kitchen sink. Once a week or so I carry the pot out to the barrel off the side of my porch and dump the contents inside. I suppose I keep at least a gallon of food waste out of our trash bin each week, sometimes more. This is an easy way to reduce landfill waste and save money because those food scraps become "Nature's Gold," a nutrient-rich soil amendment. An excellent resource for anyone with a garden.

I don't monitor the compost's moisture or bother to balance the "brown" and "green" elements. Occasionally I remember to shove a garden tool deep in the pile of rotting food and give things a stir. That's it. No, it doesn't smell; yes, sometimes it's buggy; no, we've never had problems with pests. The barrel has a removable lid on either end, so every spring I cap the top and tip it upside-down and uncap the "bottom." Behold! Splendidly rich compost for my garden appears!

This year I dug out over ten buckets of Nature's Gold to apply to my vegetable garden and raised bed. While I loaded a seventh bucket, my shovel clanked against something metallic.

Buried in the orange peels and eggshells and crumbled humus was the spoon that's been missing from my kitchen for over a year! I guess it got tossed in the pile with a bunch of potato skins while I made potato salad or some other big ol' cooking project.

the missing spoon!

One of my favorite summer annuals are zinnias. I usually grow them from seed, except this spring because I was gone so frequently I never started any inside. You'd think zinnias would seed themselves each year, except the types I've always bought are genetically modified to not have babies. (That's how the seed companies make their money.) I came home from my snowy week in Colorado to this sight:

zinnias?

In the bed that stretches beside our driveway I discovered scads of these seedlings. They appeared in the same spot zinnias grew last year. I remember scraping the dried seeds off the stems before composting the dead plants late last fall and scattering them in this very spot. I had no expectation they'd grow. Those sure look like zinnia seedlings, don't they? Stay tuned...I really hope they aren't weeds. They haven't grown real fast, so I'm hopeful I'm about to have a huge patch of a favorite flower--and a source of future zinnia seeds for years to come!

I also discovered a weasel running across our front yard, the deer are still grazing on my hostas, and new growth in the strawberry patch. All signs point to a banner gardening season!

Spill it, reader! What fun discovery have you made recently? (It doesn't need to be outside.)

And do YOU think those are baby zinnias growing by my driveway?

ONE LAST THING:

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