This growing season has been marked by snakes in the garden, since the very first warm day with snakes above ground in March.
Two humorous garter snake episodes followed with snakes in close quarters.
The first was me shuffling my feet while trudging to the compost pile. My toe caught what I assumed was a stick and flipped it into the air. My brain said “how strange, that stick’s rubbery.” Then it landed and took off in a squiggle pattern for the woods. Oops!

The second was determination to finally plant the Monarda that had been languishing in containers for two or more seasons. I hauled several pots to the back of the border to plant them where they would receive plenty of morning sun. After planting the first and second pot and digging the hole for a third one, I looked back to see a beautiful garter snake emerging out of the clump I had just planted! Her tail was still hidden inside the plant. I looked at her and she looked at me. She seemed to say “did you just do what I think you did?”

Both of these episodes had me laughing out loud and feeling a peculiar camaraderie with a reptile species that used to give me the willies.

Finally, today, I nearly repositioned a potted perennial grass on top of something that looked strange at the last second. I thought it might be a piece of metal like a spring lying out in the garden which didn’t make sense. On closer inspection I discovered a young Eastern Milk Snake nestled under leaves. A small portion of his beautiful pattern was showing. I had never seen this type of snake and thought it might be a Michigan (Massasauga) Rattler.

My husband was brave enough to gently pull away the leaves. The snake was small but fierce and repeatedly lunged and bit at the leaves he moved and the twig he was using. It did not coil or rattle. Still, we tried not to touch it while we took some photos.

An online identification search convinced me that this snake is an Eastern Milk Snake. They eat insects and amphibians, but they love to eat rodents. (We have plenty of mice, chipmunks and ground squirrels.) Eastern Milk Snakes are not venomous, which puts my mind at ease.

My husband, Eric and his friends began brewing their own beer a little over a year ago. They’ve enjoyed success with a variety of recipes.

This year, I decided to give Eric hops plants to grow in the garden as a birthday gift. Hops vines grow quite tall and require trellising. A tall trellis covered in leafy vines will provide a lush backdrop for our pond garden. The vines will grow up the right and left sides leaving the center opening as an arbor to walk through. We spent this afternoon outrunning a thunderstorm to install “Hops Henge” a trellis in our backyard consisting of 6″ x 8″ salvaged timbers donated by a generous neighbor and 10′ long split rails attached vertically with repurposed gazebo struts between them. The stormy weather hit just after we put the things up, so we have yet to train the vines up the strings. We have two varieties of hops as pictured below.

Nugget Hops gives traditional bitter flavor notes to beer

Bianca is an aromatic golden-leaved variety

I am sorry to report that many of our goldfish died this winter. The heavy snows, high winds and polar vortex combined have taken a significant toll on our aquatic life.

The pond heater did it’s best to keep some water open under the canopy that shelters the unit from wind. Extremely cold temperatures created thick ice. Persistent high winds filled in the pond basin with deep snow restricting air flow.

Most of our larger fish and one unfortunate frog have fed the crows. Some had been our friends for many seasons. We will miss them.

At least one sizable fish is still alive. This gives me hope that others may also remain along with their smaller kindred.

We will wait with hope until the weather warms enough to remove the heater and de-muck the basin.

Hi!

April is here and so it is time to run around the yard and see what’s growing and waking up after the long Michigan winter! Of course, some of the plants poised to get a jump on the season are WEEDS!

Many gardeners I know struggle each season with invasive weeds that spread like crazy. Some invasives are biennials, meaning that they overwinter in an immature state and take up to two years to complete their life cycle. Invasive weeds usually succeed by making hundreds if not thousands of seeds per plant. If even a few of these seeds sprout and grow, you are guaranteed another crop of weeds the next season!

Garlic Mustard, Dame’s Rocket, and Spotted Knap-weed are all problems in my own yard. Most of us know what these look like when they are blooming, but the best time to deal with them is before that happens! Some plants like a garlic mustard that’s already blooming, can continue to make viable seeds even after they are pulled out of the ground!

Here are a few photos of the usual suspects in their pre-bloom stage. Take a close look at the photos and tour your garden and the edges of your yard to see if you find them.

Spotted Knap-weed
Blooms like a small lavender thistle flower in mid-summer

Garlic Mustard
Note the frilly leaf edges and prominent vein structure. Blooms in Spring with many white 4-petaled flowers on a stalk. This weed is sometimes confused with violets before it bolts to bloom.

Dame’s Rocket
Blooms pink, white or lavender. Looks a little like phlox, but it has only 4 petals and flowers in Spring.

If you find these weeds, pull them up making sure to get the whole plant with the roots attached. Then cover the bare spot with mulch or leaf litter to shade the ground and keep dormant weed seeds from sprouting.

Yard waste is not generally allowed in trash pickup bins. However, Michigan has left an opening in this policy for “noxious” weeds. If, on the other hand, you’d prefer to compost your weed matter you have several options:

1. Place the pulled weeds in a black plastic bag. Close it tight and set it in the sun for couple of weeks to “cook” the weeds before dumping the now slimy, stinky weed guck into the compost heap. If it’s not slimy and stinky, it probably hasn’t cooked enough. Add water and let it sit in the sun some more. If it is slimy and stinky, it has anaerobic bacteria in it. Add it to an active compost heap rather than a finished one.

2. Somewhat more pleasant – mix the “green” fresh weed matter with “brown” compost materials like dried leaves or wood chips. If you have enough material for a 5 x 5 x 3 foot pile you can do “hot” composting! Layer the materials alternately and spray them down with the hose. Add a little bit of garden soil or finished compost after each layer to introduce microbes. Cover the whole thing with a tarp and check back in a day or two to see if the pile is warm. Hot composting uses microbial activity to digest the “green”  nitrogen rich material with the “brown” carbon rich material. If your pile has the right balance between moisture, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen, the pile will develop enough heat to kill weed seeds and pathogens. Then you are well on your way to turning noxious weeds into valuable compost!

Here’s hoping you win your weed battles this spring!