Spring Blossoms

It's taken a while for spring to arrive this year, but now that it has, every blooming bush we have is trying to make up time.  Beauty abounds; but don't blink because many of our plants bloomed and then were done in 1-2 days.

Forsythia was first.  It only bloomed well around the base.  Hmm???

Our lemon tree (kept indoors all winter) bloomed for a long time. - Very aromatic!

Mini rhododendrons - These blossoms only lasted 1 day - Darn!

Don't even know what this ground cover is called, but it beautiful in the spring; then provides green cover the rest of the year.

This is a close-up of the Redbuds - The blossom is so delicate and pretty.

Blueberries are all in blossom and the bumble bees are working.  No freeze on the blossoms this year! :)

Crab apple trees bloom for only a couple of days; Catch them quick because they are so pretty and fragrant.

The lilac bush was wonderful this year, but again the winds came and it only looked this good for a few days.  but the smell - wonderful.

Can't remember the name, but it usually blooms white all over.  Not this year, just a scattering on top.

Here's a close-up of that last blossom.

And the clematis is today starting its season.  What a beauty!

This is a close-up of the clematis blossom.

That's a brief pictorial of our blooming bushes of the last month.  There is something new to see everyday.  Most of their blooms are brief, but these trees and bushes are also mostly care-free.  They do their thing every year without much human help.  Can't beat that. 

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.

Greenhouse Goes Up, Part 2

It's two sunny days in a row.  That's got to be a good omen, and my contractor is here bright and early in the morning. It took a while yesterday to figure out the process of installing the windows, but today they know what they are doing and the window installation gets finished pretty quickly. Lots of clear caulking sealed windows to wood. 

All the windows are in.

It's about 42 degrees outside with a brisk breeze, but inside the greenhouse it's already feeling warm. The automatic window vents begin to open a crack.  My contractor thought he had done something wrong; couldn't understand why the windows wouldn't stay shut. Apparently the heat in the greenhouse causes the springs on these windows to push open automatically. Cool!

This is one of the vented windows that opens automatically.

 Then it was on to the double-Dutch hung door. Hinges, latches, and handle on the door will keep it from catching in the breeze. Final work of the day was the construction of the planting bench and the plant basin inside the greenhouse. The planting bench will hold all our seedlings and started plants.  The plant basin will (hopefully) will provide a planting environment for fall/winter crops. The construction stage is complete!  There is a little more work to be done for the electrical and water access.  Our contractor has promised to return soon, maybe as soon as Sunday, to finish up that work also. 

Double-Dutch door: Splits in the middle so you can just open the window part if wanted.

Planting Bench

Planting Basin

I'm sure you've noticed the two-toned color scheme of our greenhouse. We planned it that way (somewhat). I wanted the greenhouse to look like it belonged with our house.... consequently the grey stain.  DH wanted to see some of the cedar wood in a more natural color.... consequently the clear stain.  Now the plan was to stain the outside pieces grey, and all the inside pieces clear. However the hundreds of wood pieces were packed in a rather disorderly fashion, and as we worked our brains became muddled as to what went where.  It did not work out just as we envisioned it, but we planned it that way. (That's our story, and we're sticking to it.)

I am now off to the basement. We already have trays of seedlings just waiting to move into their new home. Oh, Merry Christmas to us!

The Greenhouse Goes Up!

Oh, exciting day! It felt just like Christmas morning when I awoke. Our contractor is putting our greenhouse up today!  What seems liked a zillion-pieced jigsaw puzzle to us, is like a "Lincoln-Log" project for him.  He and his helper got right to work at 8:30 and by noon had the side walls and rafters up.  He's hoping to have it mostly done today with a little extra electrical and water work to finish up on a second day.  I warned him I'd be taking pictures all day for the blog. I've been snapping shots every hour or so, but other than that I'm leaving them to their work.




Side walls up by 9:00 A.M.

 



Doors framed by 10:00 A.M.



Rafters up by lunchtime.

Half of the windows are in by quitting time. 



The windows are taking a little longer than my contractor expected. He has to clean them, and seal them, before setting them in and trimming.  He'll be back in the morning to finish the build.  Oh, happy day!

We're declaring the growing season started!

April 8th, 2011 - Our granddaughter's 8th birthday - And the snow has just finished melting.  We broke out the rakes and hoes for our first real taste of the new growing season.

I headed straight for my flower beds. I left a nice thick leaf blanket on them all winter. I have to peel back the leaves to let the tender new sprouts see a little sunlight. I don't mind this task at all because it's a little treasure hunt to see what is already popping up out of the ground.  Crocus have been appearing for the last week or so; popping right up out of the snow.  How welcome they are!

These tulip leaves have already been chewed on by deer and rabbits.

And there are the tulips - well, tulip leaves anyway.  I don't expect more than 3 or 4 tulip blossoms next month, even though I've planted hundreds over the years.  I have lost this battle to the deer and the rabbits.  Already I can see evidence of their mid-night snacking.  They chew the tulip leaves right down to the ground as fast as they appear.  Last year I tried laying wire fencing flat over the tulips.  This did slow the critters down; they did not like to step on or through the wire fencing.  The only downside was that other perennials got caught as they grew in the fencing also; and were slightly damaged when I pulled the fencing out in June. I'm not sure it's worth the bother.

There are other perennials peeking up: chives -  looking healthy; Jacob's ladder - just planted last year; coral bells - a couple varieties; primroses - divided these plants last fall; hyacinths - must taste bad, critters never touch these; poppies - briefest blossom ever, but so reliable; and my favorite violets - one of the "happiest" flowers I know.  Welcome back, friends.

Chives - Will be able to eat real soon.

Primrose

Coral bells just peeking up.

Poppy

And what about my DH. Yes, he has spring fever also.  Last night he transferred all the greenhouse pieces out to the "construction site".  We're now just waiting on our local builder.  Today he attacked his vegetable garden with vigor.  He's moved dirt, cultivated the soil, put in new timbers for the raised bed, and planted -- yes I said planted -- peas, spinach, onions, lettuce, carrots, and beets.  They are the cool weather crops, and can be planted early, but is he pushing the season a bit?  Maybe.  He says he has seeds left over; that's good in case this first planting rots in the ground.  I'll keep you posted.  Needless to say, we are both experiencing the immediate results of all this work - lots of sore muscles! Our backs are not what they once were.  However, the satisfaction that we get from our gardens makes our aches and pains worth it.  Spring is here, and life is coming back to the land!

This raised bed is getting new edging timbers.

Cool weather crops are being planted.

Greenhouse is awaiting construction.