Spring Harvest

I had this afternoon off, so I spent it in the garden. We've been really rainy the last few days, so everything out there is blooming and growing very quickly. I brought in our biggest harvest so far this year - some green beans, peas, strawberries and our first pepper. (The beer was for hydration).

Overall, the garden has been fantastic this year. It's been a warm, sunny spring with lots of rain, and on by my third time around I had learned a lot about planting in a small space. I couldn't be happier with the results. We're eating lots of strawberries (I'm beginning to freeze some of them), and we've had lots of onions and lettuce so far.

Our tomatoes and peppers are covered in flowers and buds, so those should be good for eating very soon. Our beets and carrots are also getting close. As far as the potatoes go, I have no clue how to tell if they're ready. I'll have to figure that one out . . . . 

The flower gardens are also filling in. This one in the backyard was planted last summer, but we rearranged it this summer to add a weeping cherry tree. If you squint you might be able to see it. Someday it will provide great shade and privacy. 

This is the bed I planted along the side of our porch earlier this year (shown here). It's quickly filling in and is currently bright with lily blooms. 

And here are a few more garden shots, just for the fun of it. Can you find the ant?

Spring Growth

Spring has arrived in Jonesville, and our outdoor activities are in full bloom.

Becca is growing lettuce in the garden with great success.

Our climatis flowers are blooming and bigger than ever.

We bought a Japanese Maple tree via mail order for our neighbor.

Becca really likes to plant trees.

Strawberries are also coming in. This year should be a great harvest, now that the squirrel cage is up.

Wrigley still likes to fetch, probably more than anything else.

Becca's new roses are looking great in their second year of growth.

Wrigley approves of the garden but wishes we grew bacon.

Garden Views

Tomato plants sprouting in the basement.

We've reached the time of year when things around the garden look different every week. Here are this week's views.

Convenient new spicket, installed by my handy dad and obliging husband. Will make it much easier to maintain our garden this year.

First anemone bloom. Love these little guys.

 Lettuce buds popping up like crazy.

 Lots of onion stems - the other thing blooming out back. Hopefully there will be lots of great things happening soon, but for now it's onions and lettuce.

 Growing, blooming vinca and clematis filling in the trellises.

    

Hens keeping the chicks company. And the logs. This little guy popped up more than a foot from the rest, between two railroad ties on our steps. And I love him. 

While the Cat's Away . . . .

 . . . and by cat I of course mean my husband.

I was off work on Friday and Chris was not, so I took the opportunity to expand one of my flowerbeds. Ok, for the sake of full disclosure I've been talking about doing this for about a year, so I was maybe not so sneaky about it. Still, I felt a bit scandalous killing his beautiful grass with mulch while he wasn't there to object, groan, whine, etc.

I was so excited about the task at hand that I completely forgot to take a before photo, but to be honest you're not missing much. When we moved in the flowerbed ran a straight line about 15" out from the house, which left not nearly enough space for interesting or dramatic planting. So I dug the border bricks out and moved them.

And somehow when I moved the bricks from the straight line to this wide-arcing curvy line, all the while worrying about where I would find additional bricks to make up for the larger space I was covering, I ended up using three fewer bricks than the original configuration! We're calling them the Hannukah bricks. It's basically a miracle.

So, at this point I've move the bricks (and boy are my arms/legs/back sore), smothered the grass with mulch and planted the following:

1 sky pencil holly. This guy will grow in a great vertical column, approximately 2 feet wide and 8-10 feet tall when it's all said and done. It is a rather delicate plant, so it will require a lot of attention at first and it may look worse for the wear for a year or two while it gets established. Hopefully, though, if all goes well it will start springing up soon and give a nice vertical accent to the corner.

1 yellow twig dogwood. I usually think as dogwoods as the flowering trees, but this little shrub is a small-growing garden accent. It will flower like the trees, and then in the winter when the greenery dies back it will display bright yellow/orange branches. It should get no taller than about three feet though.

and a few perennials. I also placed an order at a good cheap online retailer I've used a few times before for a rose bush and a few additional perennials and prairie grasses to begin filling in my new space.

Over the next month or so I'll keep on planting. My hope is that by the end of the summer, when you approach our house from the south, you'll be greeted by a lush flowering little oasis. That's not to much to ask, is it?

And speaking of oasis, spring has officially begun to bloom at our house. In addition to crocus, we have daffodils and hyacinth blooming, as well as buds and sprouts all over. And . . . I spent today prepping the veggie beds for planting. I should hopefully have more to report on that tomorrow. 

Greening Up

We spent the morning going through the local nursery, and I'm feeling especially inspired for the summer ahead. In addition to our regular vegetable garden, I have some big flowerbed plans for this year. A nursery employee walked around with us this morning and helped me sort through some ideas. Long story short, there are exciting things ahead. Here's some eye candy.

 

Most of my planting so far has been perennials - flowers that die down each winter but come back in the spring. I love them and the life they give our yard through the growing season. This year, though, I'm going big. This means shrubs that will give shape all year long, and yes even another tree. It's exciting stuff.

Not that things aren't already happening. Due to the warm winter we've experienced here in KC, my spring bulbs are about a month ahead of their usual spring schedule. And I love it. It's nice to start seeing some life after a very grey and brown season. So far we've seen lots of crocuses and some daffodil buds.

 

  

Also, we came to the realization this winter that when we purchased our eight boxwoods for out front our first spring in the house, we must have accidentally purchased seven of one kind and one of a different kind. (Can you find the odd one out?)

We described the issue at the nursery today (it grows out rather than up and has a slightly more purple color to its leaves) and the nursery employee confirmed our suspicions. So, we'll be replacing the "one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-others" shrub this summer. Maybe our little odd guy out will become part of our newly expanded garden areas after we plant his replacement.

Garden Dreaming

Any of you in the midwest know as well as we do that this has been a weird winter, if you can even call it winter. Chris and I took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and did yard work over the weekend, and it got me into my usual springtime garden fever. I'm ready to plant.

So I spent an afternoon preparing my planting list, and mapping out my beds, with much help from Burpee seeds and the Farmer's Almanac. Planting will officially begin in the Jones home on March 1 when lettuce seeds go down outside.

But before I get into my plans, here are some ghosts of garden past to help you get as excited as I am about this:

Grape and roma tomatoes

Peppers!

Mammoth sunflower before

And after. See the boxelder bug enjoying the view?

First year in our garden. I overplanted a little.

And the ever-growing rosemary.

This year's planting will look like this:

Bed 1: Strawberries. (as always)

Bed 2: Tomatoes, grape tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, onions. Basically it's a salsa garden.

Bed 3: Lettuce, spinach and potatoes. The potatoes are new, but I hear they're easy to grow and extra delicious when fresh. I might try out a unique variety, like purple potatoes.

Bed 4: Beans, beats and carrots. Basically beets and friends, because wow do I love beets. I've even convinced Chris that they're worth eating. And I might throw in a few ears of corn, even though Chris told me I wasn't allowed. Just think, trying to keep this Iowa native from growing a few ears of sweet corn . . . . don't tell him.

In addition, we'll have a planter of mint, one of basil, one of rosemary (our rosemary plants from last year have actually survived the winter, so this one is good to go!), one of peas (this is new - I found a compact variety of pea plant that's perfect for small spaces) and one of parsley, oregano and sage. Each garden bed will hold marigolds to keep the critters away, and I'll have a few varieties of sunflowers - including the huge ones, of course - along the flower beds outside the garden retaining wall.

So that's it, we're on official countdown to seed day - only 10 days! I can't wait.