It's not large, or rare, or even particularly attractive. This ordinary backyard birdberry tree is famous only because I've uploaded so many photos of it - at least 1 every month for almost 2 years! This month (April 2022) has seen explosive green growth, so I took a couple pics every week or so. If the weather isn't too strange, the tree will finally flower and produce fruit this summer, completing this photo series. Dozens of birds (and blockchain denizens) will be thrilled to see those bunches of orange berries!

April started pretty chilly, especially at night, but the buds had already begun.

Before long, the canopy showed signs of green.

The leaves began to spread forth all over. This stage was pretty stunted last year.

By the middle of the month, things were getting nice and green!

The sunshine had some warmth to it, and the tree reached out to soak it up.

Soon I saw clusters of flowers amid fresh leafy growth:

The canopy really started to fill in! Every day brings new changes for the tree.

New green shoots full of leaves spreading out:

In the past few days, the clusters of flowers are growing and expanding:

This afternoon, I grabbed this snapshot of the canopy, which is getting lush.

So, that's what happened in April. Here are the previous months, going backward in time:

March:

February:

January:

December:

November:

October:

September:

August:

July:

June:

May:

April:

March:

Feb:

Jan:

December:

November:

October:

September:

August:

---

Can we get back to a tree full of ripe berries in just 3 months? Stay tuned.

Bonus

I wrote the other day about getting back to the garden in a serious way. I'm trying to grow as much food as I can, with limited tools, equipment, funds, and space. My soil is a bit tired, so I'm doing what I can to compost my kitchen scraps and yard waste.

Here is the garden as it sits today:

You'll notice the grass needs mowing! And along the fence are the garlics mentioned in my previous post. Today, I'm turning over the soil, breaking up clumps, removing stones, and adding in some compost for nutrition.

There's the last year's worth of kitchen scraps, lawn clippings, weeds, and egg shells! It rotted down to a half barrel of rich gooey fertilizer.

I scooped it out onto the garden, then used a big shovel to dig it under and mix it in. That will keep me going another summer.

I noticed this little guy near my rhubarb:

I haven't seen that plant before. It might be a weed, but I planted some new seeds here recently, so maybe it's that? Hmmmm. I looked around for clues.

Bingo! There's a couple more, one of them still wearing the fibrous outer seed coat I recognize from when I sowed them. That's the Mountain Spinach! Technically, it's not a real spinach at all, but an edible plant species that has been grown as food for thousands of years. It's hardier than spinach and grows longer into the hot summer months, and supposedly really tasty and loaded with nutrition. I'm excited to see how it does here!

That's all, folks! The birdberry tree looks like it might finally get a crop of berries off again, and if I keep putting in effort, I'll get some food out of the yard. It will be my pleasure to broadcast to you my adventures and results!

Oh and one final photo, a kind of teaser for my canna-followers...

I have something (feminized!) in the works! So as the weather warms up, I will have some scrumptious organic outdoor content to puff-puff-pass around the blockchain... on the left-hand side, of course :))

Grow in peace.
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