Getting Ready for Spring

The weather is cold and it’s too early to plant anything yet.  The trees are getting ready to put on their leaves and flowers but there isn’t much excitement in the yard yet.

In the meantime, I’m getting ready to plant some vegetables and flowers.  The flowers will help attract the bees and butterflies that will pollinate the crops.  They will also provide some food for the grasshoppers that are bound to come along.  The flowers are a diversion so that the grasshoppers and caterpillars will eat the flowers and stay away from the trees.  I know I’ll lose some of the vegetable crop to them, but if they have enough other things to eat, hopefully they will leave most of the fruit and vegetables alone.

Mother Nature is able to grow a wide variety of food in a small space that feeds numerous mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and insects. The insects will help pollinate the plants, but unfortunately there will also be insects that want to eat my plants.  That is where the toads and frogs that reside in my forest come in. The frogs and toads are my natural insecticide.  This was Mother Nature’s plan.  

I will also have to contend with squirrels, rabbits, gophers, opossums, raccoons, snakes, dogs, cats and the occasional cow that gets out of the neighbor’s fence.  These animals and insects have been in my world for a long time and helped make growing plants in my yard possible.  They have been the backbone of most of the forests in the United States and will be the backbone of mine also.