Garden Update

I love when the flowers of Spring begin showing off! The weeping cherry tree in our side yard is so lovely, you almost don't notice the neglected bed beneath it! We still have so much yard work to do!

Along the edge of the woods in the back are the daffodils that got pushed back there when the yard was being made into a lawn and forsythia branches that my husband just stuck into the ground with no roots, that have rooted and are now making a lovely backdrop for the daffodils.

The half dead Andromeda we brought back from the dump is blooming and doing well.

I've been buying left-over Easter plants on clearance and putting them in the flower garden.

It makes the pathway look so nice, and all of these plants are deer resistant so they will return year after year and multiply.

I took some time this weekend to thin out the raspberry bed. I had a wheelbarrow overflowing with clipped canes. It looks so much better now with space around each cane. Hopefully it will make for a healthier plant - and more raspberries!

I planted my potatoes in the flower bed, which is open, so I put this netting over the  trenches to keep out critters who may desire a potato breakfast. The netting is on a bit of an angle from the dirt piled to either side of the trenches and this has given me an idea of turning this bed into a cold frame this fall. Hubby says a cold frame needs to be near the house, but I think this will work fine. It is sited south facing and has a bit of protection from the Potager behind it. I need to work on plans to make that happen. 

In the Potager, there are more seedlings up. The snow peas and english peas popped up last weekend.

English Peas

Seedling photos are so unimpressive! The beets, pak choi, swiss chard and more radishes are also up, but I'll spare you for a few weeks until you can actually see something! It is still so thrilling though to walk through the garden and find a new plant coming up! I hope all of your gardens are also growing well!

A Spring Weekend of Gardening - Finally!

While it was lovely Easter weekend, I had activities planned every day that kept me out of the garden, so this weekend was my first weekend to get work done. I began spreading some mulch, and then moved onto weeding the asparagus bed and the garlic bed behind the Potager. Then I spent the remaining day weeding my flower garden. I was covered in dirt from my head to my toes, but the end result was worth it.

Ahh, that is better! The funny thing I find about planting perennials is when they start to come up, I don't always know what it is coming up! Some are old friends that I would recognize anywhere, some I know only because I know what was planted there last year. And then there those that baffle me for a while. This year there are about three plants I didn't recognize. One had a minty smell when I crushed one of the leaves. Binx solved that problem for me when he began rolling and laying on it. Cat Mint! I'd totally forgotten that I picked up a half dead Cat Mint plant at the end of the season sale at Lowes. I may need to put some type of barrier over it so it can grow a bit before my cat crushes it. He will crush it. But it's so much fun to watching him do that, that I'm okay with it.
Weeding the flower garden took me from 9:30 when I finished the Asparagus and Garlic weeding until 6:00 PM. I should have taken a before shot. It was a mess! It needs to be mulched badly, I only bought 5 bags of mulch. I spread two in the front left hand side of the Flower Garden and the rest went in two of the beds in the front of the gardens.

Mulch just makes everything look beautiful! Even when everything isn't up yet.
After church, a quick trip to the grocery store and lunch, I only had about three hours left to work in the Potager on Sunday afternoon. I turned over two beds, weeded a third, and then utter exhaustion set in.

There is a lot left to do, but I had to stop at that point. Although it still looks messy, it's an improvement. I did take a walk around to see what's coming up.

The spinach growing under the pea support is up. The peas are not.

Salad Rose radishes planting between the snow peas are up. The snow peas are not. 

Turnip

The turnips are up. As are the arugula. But no Pak Choi yet.

Arugula

And even though it will not last once the weather turns warm, I couldn't resist plopping a pot of Pansies in my great-grandfather's cement planter. I love pansies.

I saw one of those sayings that you can put on your wall and I bookmarked it for when I redo the Laundry Room. It says, "The most memorable days usually end with the dirtiest clothes." How true.