The Veggie Garden is In

After waiting  months for the weather to allow us to get out to the gardens, May is now here and, as usual, we can barely keep up. It's still been very rainy, but we're blessed -- no floods, no tornados, no late frosts even.  Actually the moist cool May has been perfect for almost all our plants.  It's a jungle out there this month.  DH has been mowing the grass a least twice a week. Our split perennials from last fall, and our new seedling transplants are all doing well.

We quickly filled our greenhouse last month with cuttings and seedlings. We built two new raised gardens - one for pumpkins and squash, and the other for full sun flowers. DH screwed treated posts together with angle iron, then drilled holes and anchored the frames to the ground by driving in rebar.  (By the way, anyone got an opinion on how safe treated posts are for a veggie garden?  The internet gives mixed advice, and I couldn't dissuade DH.) A load of good garden soil delivered to the edge of our lawn was shoveled and hauled back to fill the new raised gardens.

This bed will hold pumpkins and squash.

This new bed is just for me -- annual flowers this year!

Then it was full steam ahead with the planting. Cold weather crops were planted in April - peas, onions, spinach, carrots, beets, and swiss chard.  We ate our first spinach salad last night - yum! Beans, parsley, zucchini and cucumbers were planted from seed last weekend. Tomato, pepper, squash and pumpkin plants were started in the greenhouse, hardened off and set into the garden also last weekend.  The tomato plants especially looked wonderful this year - big and sturdy.  (We have extras if anyone wants them.)

Beautiful tomatoes grown from seed -- hardening off.

 DH used grass clippings to mulch all his veggies.  It's a little stinky as it decomposes, but it does the job, and it's free. 

Here's some of that early spinach. Note the grass clipping mulch.

Veggie garden is planted and mulched.

Cucumbers and zucchini

Pumpkins and squash

I planted my new bed with cosmos in the back, 2 dahlias in the middle, zinnias in the middle, and ornamental cabbage in the front.  The ornamental cabbage and some of the zinnias and cosmos were started in the greenhouse.  I planted more seeds of the same directly in the bed.  Not even a full 24 hours later, I found rabbit damage on the cabbage and cosmos.  DH helped me surround the bed with fencing.  I'm hoping that in a month when everything is firmly established I'll be able to remove the fence. Darn those rabbits -- they're all over the place! 

Had to add fencing to slow down the rabbits.

Today as I sit here at the computer, the window off my right shoulder is open. I'm listening to the birds and a gentle breeze in the newly opened maple tree leaves. It's heavenly.  But it's also calling to me.  I weeded, planted and mulched, a front flower bed already this morning. I'm feeling it - my back already hurts... but soon... I'll do a bit more... it's just a beautiful day.

Primrose the Bleeding Hearts

My perennials are taking off.  It's hard to pick a star of the gardens today, but the cool rainy weather has been great for the primroses and the bleeding hearts. I divided my primroses last fall and now I have twice as many.  Yeah!  They are special little bouquets that can't help but elicit a smile.

Happy little primroses



The other stars today are the bleeding hearts.  They spread all on their own, and I actually removed several last fall.  It seems like I had more pink ones in previous years, but this year the white ones are claiming most of the glory.  They are spectacular!

The large white ones are so profuse this year -- very striking.

Large and small bleeding hearts frame my grandson's garden art!  Thanks, Brodie. I love it!

Pink  -- so sweet.

This is another small variety of bleeding hearts.

We've spent hours in the gardens this weekend.  The vegetable garden is planted.  We put the warm weather crops in since there are no freezing nights predicted for the next week, and Memorial Day is usually the last day we worry about frost. We planted cold weather crops (peas, spinach, lettuce, beets, onions, chard) last month, and although they sure had a slow start with our wet and cold, they are now taking off. We should have spinach and lettuce to eat by the end of this next week. Yeah!  I 'll have some pictures soon ... as soon as my aching muscles let me back up from this chair.  :)

The Birdwalk

No we haven't stopped gardening; in fact, there have been gardening things going on every day. I'm just behind on my blogging. Where does that extra time in retirement go? All I know is that I'm having a lot of fun, and am busy each and every day.

It's been the rainiest spring ever, but still we are planting and playing in the greenhouse.  We've already eaten spinach that we started indoors in a pot, and asparagus that always surprises us.  We never have a big crop of asparagus, but 4-6 stalks seem to pop up every other day - just enough for us to enjoy with dinner.

But this post has to be about our birds. The songbirds wake me every morning; I listen to them all morning long as I go about my business. I think they are the most beautiful and relaxing sounds in the universe. My DH keeps the bird feeders filled and we have a plethora of birds who visit us daily:  chickadees, finches, robins, bluebirds, cardinals, hummingbirds, flickers, woodpeckers, morning doves, and bluejays are some of my favorites that I can recite off the top of my head.  And of course, we have the annoying grackles, sparrows, swallows and crows. The crows especially get me going since I've seen them both grap and eat my yellow finches, and also attack my garbage bag spreading the garbage across the lawn before the garbage man can get here.

We've had a few surprise visitors this month.  The most exciting ones have been the Baltimore orioles.  We've put out cut oranges in previous years with no luck, but this year, the day after we put out the oranges 2 males and 1 female oriole stopped by.  We watched them excitedly for 2 days, but have not seen them since.  Were they just passing through?

This is not my oriole, but one just like it. Try as I might, I could not get a good picture of our visiting orioles, so I borrowed one from online (http://www.bentler.us/eastern-washington/animals/birds/bullocks-oriole.aspx).

Next to visit were a pair of ducks who stopped in yesterday.  We often have Canadian geese who fly overhead on their way to the local creek for an overnight, but never before have we seen ducks stop here.  They stayed just long enough for a picture or two.

Our visiting ducks

And then today, as I stood at the sink doing some dishes, I saw 2 Tom turkeys come trotting across the yard.  I grapped the camera and took a few shots right from the window.  They were already moving quickly across the yard, and I was afraid if I opened a door they would take off.  That's exactly what they did, but not before they checked out the greenhouse and the asparagus bed.  (It takes so little to get me excited.)

This is 1 of 2 Toms that came visiting this morning. I wish I could have gotten a shot of him spreading his tail feathers. It was magnificent!

As I sit here at the computer next to an open window, I'm listening to the songbirds. I got my DH a birdcam last summer, and it is time to get it set back up at the feeders.  Spring is here; the plants are growing, and the birds are singing. Life is good.