The strange spring of 2012

Asparagus on April 1. 

This spring will certainly go down as one of the weirdest weather seasons we've ever experienced. The maple syrup season ended early when temperatures the second week of March climbed into the upper 70s and never cooled down at night.
This caused some of our annual crops to start early. The picture of the rhubarb emerging was from March 18 and the picture of the asparagus was from April 1. Yes -- we're not fooling -- we had fresh asparagus from our garden the first week of April.
Of course the old saying about Wisconsin weather -- if you don't like the weather we're having, wait a minute -- proved to be true as a cold snap in mid-April brought us temperatures in the low 20s overnight for almost a week. We tried to cover our blossoming apple trees, but it was futile.
The past few nights we've been covering our strawberry plants, which are already blossoming.
Only time will tell if we will have any apple crop this year, but last weekend the garden was tilled and some of the early vegetables -- like potatoes, leeks, carrots, parsnips, peas and beets -- are in the ground.
Our first crop of hay will surely be earlier this year as well, but we need some warm temperatures and no freezing overnight so that it can take off.

Rhubarb on March 18.