spring

When the green buds puff up at the tree's twiggy tips, the gardener's inner clock strikes a chord: it's tulip time! Today's Growing on the High Plains will scoop up some hisotry and context for these storied favorites, as their influence spans the globe and the hands of time. Their appeal has always run deep. These thick-petaled protruberances once signified wealth and were treated as tradable tender. But if you scroll back far enough, their power moved economies and pushed markets underground—literally and figuratively (on the "black market").

Today on Growing on the High Plains, we'll discuss one of the early alerts of an impending Spring: chives. Not only are they quite lovely, they're also a delightlful addition to dishes from your home kitchen. As lightweight, low-sulfur onions, chives can add a fresh, savory kick to everything from salads to omelets—and obviously the beloved bakead potato.

Blink and you’ll miss the brief, springtime bloom of these purple-hued beauties. But not to worry—they’ll be back again this time next year…and the next…and the next. Because believe it or not, these sweet-smelling shrubs can have a lifespan of more than 300 years.

On today’s Growing on the High Plains, we’re talking about lilacs. Revered worldwide for their intoxicating fragrance and graceful cascading flowers, it’s actually their resilience to travel and transplantation that placed them on American shores early in our history.

We’ve finally reached that hopeful time of year. It’s the time when winter loosens its icy hold on the High Plains and the first signs of spring burgeon up from the frozen ground, dotting the naked foliage with the budding promise of warmer times to come.

With the first of May arriving this week, I thought it an apt time to pause and reflect on the historical traditions associated with the special day. From a Red Square affair to a celebration of weather fair, May Day has been associated with a variety of rites and rituals.