Waiting for the frogs to sing

As it warms, our wetland vernal ponds are still holding a lot of water, and the surrounding moist and mesic-moist soil is thoroughly saturated.

Wood frogs (Rana sylvatica) will be the first to begin singing, and they will begin breeding with the first warm rain, sometimes while there is still ice on the ponds. Most interesting, they are found further north than any other North American reptile or Amphibian.

Photo by Karen Fancl 

Winter flooding

A few brave folks drove through 8-10 inches of water moving across the top of the West Virginia side of the Oldtown Bridge.

I had a trailer in tow, and we had been thinking of making a trip to Cumberland, so we wimped out, stopped by Nature's Art in Cumberland to buy an indoor lime tree, and then drove down Route 28 through Ridgely, Fort Ashby, Springfield and then back north to Green Spring.

Cherry tree

Back in the city, my neighbor Joanne had a very large ornamental cherry tree that had succumbed to the burden of winter snow, after years of struggling with invasive English ivy. I offered to trim the dead branches, and she accepted, but then told me she was planning to pay to have the whole struggling tree removed. I summoned my neighbor Doug, who I new would love the wood for the custom canoe and kayak paddles he builds, and we promised to save her a few hundred dollars by taking care of it during the three-day weekend.

Only after cleaning up did we realize we cut down a cherry tree on Washington's Birthday. While the account of George Washington's story is debated among historians, we didn't know what to think about this, but we thought we could at least pose for a photo.

Taking advantage of the end of Winter

The occasional warm days hint bring a little optism. But I'll confess that some things are easier in Winter. Here we've loaded 95 gallons (about 650 pounds)of coffee grounds from the Java Shack in Arlington and Open Kitchen in Falls Church into the T190.

Sometimes we apply the coffee grounds immediately to the soil to provide some acidity, mostly for berry crops or transplanted plants from the Ericaceae family (blueberries, cranberries, rhododendron and laurel).

Otherwise it's beneficial to compost the coffee grounds. We like to create a mix of leaves (90% by volume), coffee grounds (5%), and woodstove ashes (5%) to maximize the nutrient availability in the mature compost.

Pre-Vernal Ponds

Our turtle, frog and Wood Duck ponds were pretty low all winter, but we've been glad to see nearly all of them at full capacity this week. This will ensure the best conditions for wood frogs and peepers in early March.

Before we bought our farm, the wetlands were drained by dredging the original intermittent stream to create a narrow channel. The creek boundaries may have been ambiguous after the extensive flooding in 1996, but by creating a channel, a lot of wonderful wetland habitat was no longer available. We merely created stream crossings with 6-inch flow-through pipe and 90o ends that can be rotated to allow for variable depths. We can raise the water level by up to 8".

As many of you know, we didn't have to plant a single wetland plant; they immediately appeared from the existing seed bank.