Signs of life..
Just as I was starting to wonder if my asparagus experiment was going to be a complete and utter failure, on my way to the garage this morning, I noticed some very encouraging signs of life!
(As usual, clickable thumbnails.)
The stalks are teeny tiny – really more slender than the grass in my lawn – but they’re definitely asparagus. Next spring I should be able to do a light harvest of some young stalks, and the following year I’ll be able to do a full harvest. Mmmm.. I *love* asparagus, so the idea of being able to walk out in the morning and harvest some fresh to pan sear with a little butter and some scrambled eggs for breakfast is simply divine.
The strawberries have been showing more regular signs that they’re getting well established as well:
I am not sure if I should expect to actually get fruit from the strawberries this year – they’re an everbearing variety, so it’s definitely possible – but even if not, the prospect of a nice full bed of beautiful red fruit next summer is rather exciting.
Late last week I finally managed to get all the seeds in the raised beds – cukes, radishes (yes, I know, terribly late), snap peas, summer and winter squash, and lettuce. I have one bed still empty for tomatoes and peppers (which should arrive later this week), and room still in the other beds to do another sowing of lettuce, radishes and peas, so here’s hoping I planned better this year and don’t end up with the jungle of tomato doom that overshadowed everything else I planted two years ago.
Unfortunately, I also have one quarter of one of the beds that’s been overrun by grass; I dug out as much as I could, and have covered the area up with big rhubarb leaves in hopes of starving it of light, but the roots are so embedded in the soil that I think I may just have to resign myself to Round Up at the end of the season to kill it all off.
I also, for the first time since I moved into the house, harvested some of the monstrous rhubarb that grows in the side patio bed. I brought 8 or 10 stalks to my sister’s yesterday since my brother-in-law is a rather avid cook and I figured he could find something fun and tasty to make with it. I picked that much again tonight, cut it up and stuck most of it in the freezer. I’m planning to make at least some rhubarb cordial*, but may also do a rhubarb cake or some such as well. I expect that I’ll be able to harvest quite a bit more over the next couple of weeks, but I’m pretty sure it freezes quite well and frozen fruits (though I’m pretty sure it’s not a fruit..?) are always good to have on hand.
I’m also thinking ahead a bit to later in the summer when the cukes start coming in and contemplating making dill pickles. I’ve never done it, but I *love* crunchy dill pickles and I will likely have more cukes than I’ll ever eat fresh, so I’m thinking this might just be the year to try it out. Hrm. Which pr’bly means I should plant some dill, too.
* Cut up rhubarb. Fill a quart jar with as much as will fit. Pour 1 c. or so of sugar over fruit. Fill jar with vodka or white rum. Shake daily until the sugar is fully dissolved. Let age until it tastes right or the fruit turns white. Strain out the liquid and bottle for a taste of early summer in the dead of winter. This general recipe – cut up fruit to fill a jar, 1 c. sugar, fill with vodka – will work with most fruits to make cordials and I’ve found it considerably easier than the recipes that require simple syrup.
*love*
Done!
(All are clickable thumbnails.)
Isn’t it beautiful?
I feel like I have a brand new back yard now.
Pergola on the left, extended deck on the right, strawberry and asparagus bed in front of the pergola.
This has to be the perfect place to spend a warm spring evening.
New “cure” for rain..
I’m afraid I may have found a new cure for bad weather. It’s not one I’m likely to attempt regularly, though.
This morning dad and I awoke to overcast skies that quickly opened up into rain. Given that we were planning to start the deck construction this morning, we were a little concerned, but decided to run into town for breakfast and to run a few errands and see what things looked like when we got home. Some $300 later, the sun was breaking through and we were back on our way home to begin the framing for the deck. I’m trying not to think about how monetary “sacrifices” to the weather deities might work, but I am hoping the storm we’re getting now moves through before morning!
Even with a somewhat truncated working day, we did get the deck framed and the decking down:
View standing at the back door (As usual, all are clickable thumbnails.)
View standing under the pergola on the patio, with a bonus shot of the little black pig
Yesterday dad pressure washed the existing decking, so while the color shift from the old to the new is noticeable it’s not nearly as glaring as it would have been had he not taken the time and effort (thanks, dad!). He also built the railing between the house and the stairs and on the stairs, all while I was at work.
At the moment, the deck is quite lovely and even though it’s only 8×16, is rather large enough for my tastes. Here’s a shot with the deck furniture (a decent chunk of the “sacrifice” from this morning) we assembled this evening for some scale:
The table is 42″ and there are four rocker chairs, all of which fit comfortably on the new part of the deck. It may feel a little more enclosed tomorrow once the rest of the fence and the railing is in place, but even so it’s a grand little spot to sit and watch the birds. I can’t wait to be able to step out on a sunny morning with a cup of coffee and watch the neighborhood wake up!
.. and then some!
It’s been an absolutely beautiful weekend here, after a dry but slightly chilly end of week; all of that was much appreciated, however, after the rain from last weekend prompted some jostling of plans. (We had been intending to pour the concrete footings for the deck extension last weekend, but the rain (which was much needed and therefore will be spared the full force of my wrath *smile*) delayed that.)
Note: I’m beat, so this post may be lacking in poetic phrasing and.. yeah, all that. While the tone may not convey it, I’m rather terribly excited and happy with everything we’ve accomplished! Since this one has lots of pictures, I’ll throw a jump in here for those using a feed reader. Read the rest of this entry »
Since I can’t be in my garden this weekend..
.. I might as well post about it. *smile*
I’m a few weeks behind, but I’ve spent several evenings the last couple of weeks out in the yard clearing out the deadfall from last year. The side and front garden got cleaned up first as they’re the easiest and are the only ones with perennials that are starting to come up. I bagged up I think 5 bags of yard waste from just those beds, though, since there are a few places in them that like to collect leaves. I’ve also cleaned out the deadfall from the raised beds and cleared out all the rose canes, but did that after the deadline for the County to still pick up yard waste from the curb, so I’ll have to run all that down to the green dump myself at some point.
My plans for the weekend changed at the more-or-less last minute. I had intended to sink the footings for the expansion to my (currently not really) deck with my dad, and he was going to bring the pieces of my pergola down and put it together on the back deck. Unfortunately, southeastern Minnesota is now sitting smack in the midst of a weather system that is promising thunderstorms and rain all weekend, and digging 42 inches into rain soaked ground, and then trying to fill the holes with concrete while dodging rain (and possible hail) storms didn’t seem like such a wise idea. As much as we really do need the rain – and the storms so far have been awe-inspiring – I’m a little bit bummed that we had to shuffle things around.
But, since I’m more or less homebound on a dark, grey, rainy weekend, I’ve been planning a bit for this year’s garden. I found an interesting blog post, via foodgawker a few days ago, about a victory garden; the interesting part is the “deer guard” and it has me wondering if you could use a similar technique to train vining plants up over the dome. It’d have to be small enough to fit inside the box, which might then be too small. If the plan I have for this year doesn’t work out, I may investigate further. For this year, though, dad’s built me a frame similar to (maybe made from.. can’t remember) an old window screen frame with larger-mesh screen. The intention is to prop it up at an angle so that the vines will grow up the topside, and still be able to plant shade-loving things underneath it. I have to plot out the garden boxes to figure out what’s going where still – I have most of an idea, but need to actually sit down and write it all out – but I think that this should let me grow the lettuce “underneath” the cukes or squash, at least until the vines get so large the block out all the light (which may not be an issue if I set the frame up in the right direction to still let in light through the open end).
In areas unrelated to the garden, I think I may need to give in and buy a small printer for home. I normally try not to print things as I can usually make notes on a smaller piece of paper and therefore prevent wasting several whole pieces for something like directions. But sometimes, like when I find recipes I want to try, there’s more information than I want to translate. Unfortunately, I really don’t want to add a printer to my desk space, but I may shop around and see if I can find one of the teeny tiny ones that are made for folks who travel with them so I can stash it away discretely when I’m not using it.
Living up to its name..
This week is spring break here, which is normally a sort of optimistic title around these parts. This year, not so much. The weekend saw our first truly spring-like days, and the weekdays are following suit quite nicely. I even sat out on the back patio and grilled last night (color me surprised that I actually had charcoal)! Now, if only the administrators got spring break off, too.
It’s been difficult not to think about my plans for the yard and garden this year now that it’s finally getting warmer. Last week I talked about the plans part*, but it got long so I didn’t go into the plants I’ve ordered, which should be here in .. oh.. about two months. *grin*
Backyard:
15137 Strawberry – Ozark Beauty – 25 Plants
I’m pretty excited about these guys, but haven’t exactly decided where they’ll go yet. I need to cut the bed for them, so hopefully the ground will thaw here soon so I can get it all prepped before they arrive! I don’t usually have an issue with animals eating things from the gardens, but I’m a little more concerned about strawberries, so we’ll see if I actually get any of these to full ripe before the critters get them.
Side bed by patio:
41285A Moonflower Giant White – 1 Pkt. (20 seeds)
These will vine up the pergola. My eventual plan for the pergola is grape vines, but I’m expecting that it will take a few years before they grow enough so my hope is to use some vining annuals in the interim. I love Moonflowers – friends in DC had them in their back patio and they were enchanting and beautiful. This is the bed that needs to be overhauled, which I’m not particularly looking forward to, but such is life.
Deck* (in containers):
22018 Patio Princess Tomato – 1 order (3 plants)
I have two other tomato varietals (see farther down) this year, but will only get 1 or 2 plants of each, depending on what the other folks who ordered with me want. I’m expecting to get 1 of one kind and 2 of the other (but don’t know which), and since I may end up with just one of each I wanted to have another option to be sure I’d have plenty of fresh tomatoes this year. I’m excited to try these – they grow in pots, so they’ll be up on the (newly remodeled) back deck.
Front yard:
36483A Dolichos, Lablab – 1 Pkt. (35 seeds) – in the flower boxes
22105 Lobelia Cardinal Flower – 2 plants
42267A Convolvulus Enchantment Series – Mix – 1 Pkt. (150 seeds)
I originally envisioned foxglove in the front yard, but either the plants I ordered never survived or the squirrels dug them up. I’m hoping the lobelia will have better luck. The Convulvulus are sort of a filler – I planted Cosmos in a patch in the front two years ago, and though they’re supposed to be an annual, they rebloomed last year. I decided to hedge my bets that they’d make it another, but if they do, I have other places I can fill in with the Convolvulus. The Dolichos will go in the front flower boxes just as a variety on the morning glories I’ve done in the past.
Garden boxes:
69013 Asparagus Mary Washington – 1 Pack (25 Roots)
14985 Onion Walla Walla Sweet – 1 offer (2 bunches)
20615C Sweet Pepper Collection (6 plants, one of each, though I’m splitting this with a friend)
23015 Tomato Fresh Salsa – 1 order (1-2 plants; the others will go to a friend)
20651 Tomato Fourth of July Hybrid – 1 order (1-2 plants; the others will go to mom and dad)
59114 Lettuce EZ Serve – 15′ Seed Tape
54833A Summer Squash Sunray Hybrid – 1 Pkt. (25 seeds)
51722A Winter Squash Burpee’s Butterbush – 1 Pkt. (25 seeds)
52175A Burpless Beauty Cucumber – Packet (30 seeds)
53512A Snap Pea Super Sugar Snap V.P. – 1 Pkt. (200 seeds)
60962A Radish Burpee White – 1 Pkt. (300 seeds)
And that’s the vegetables.
- I’ve been wanting to grow asparagus for*ever* but the long lead-up time discouraged me. This year I’ve decided I’ll never get it if I don’t just start some, so here’s hoping it works.
- The onions, peppers and tomatoes will get used for salsa inevitably, though I hope to have enough to enjoy lots of them fresh too.
- One of the reasons I tend not to eat more salads is that I don’t like how wilty the lettuce gets if it’s not really fresh, and I don’t eat it consistently enough to buy it really fresh regularly; the lettuce above looks good and they say that when you harvest it, it just falls apart into a nearly ready-made salad, so here’s hoping!
- I like summer squash in stir fries and kabobs and this is the kind I planted two years ago which has a great taste. The winter squash I’m hoping to store and use throughout the fall and winter – I love squash, but don’t think to get it very often.
- Cukes are just good summer food. I was at a restaurant last weekend that had cucumber slices in the water that reminded me how much I like that, so even if I end up with lots this year, I expect I’ll find uses for them.
- Snap peas are great snacks, great in stir fries, and I suspect they freeze rather well, too. I’m rather fond of the idea of chopping up some of the squash, onions, peppers and peas and freezing my own little garden stir fry packets for use throughout the year.
- I eat radishes raw as a snack whenever I remember to get them, which isn’t often. I wanted to grow them two years ago, but never managed to get the seeds in the ground before it got too warm. Given that I’m already itching to get out in the garden this year, I don’t expect that to be as much of an issue!
So yeah.. it’s 52 degrees out now (at twenty to seven in the evening, so not bad) but the ground still appears to be frozen and the small strip of yard that doesn’t get direct sunlight still has snow. Spring now, please?
* Smart, smart dad suggested I contact the City to see if the deck would require a building permit and it pr’bly will, and may even need a variance because the existing deck might be too close to the property line, so I’ll be making my first foray into grown-up home-owner/city relations soon!
Spring! (Soon..?)
According to the calendar, Spring starts this month. While I’m sure it’s the case that true gardeners in Zone 4 have been planning their plots for months already, this little novice gardener has just set out in that direction.
The raised beds were dormant last year* – I had a bit going on as well as some uncertainty about permanence that precluded even maintenance that should have been done – so there is a fair amount of clean up that will need to be done yet this year before things are ready to plant. The four raised beds need to be thoroughly weeded/emptied and I’d also like to add more dirt to them. While the level of soil is deep enough, it is only just barely. So at some point, once the ground thaws, I’ll be tending to the clearing of the beds and ordering more soil. Like.. in a dump truck.
The front and side beds, fortunately, for the most part are self-maintaining. I will need to put down more mulch in the front this year, and be a little more vigilant about weeding out there. I also need to be more regular in watering the front planting boxes, and training whatever gets planted in them to vine up whatever mesh I install as that is the only way I’m going to get afternoon shade on the front porch. And I’m rather romantically attached to the idea of mint juleps in the shade on the front porch. *grin*
The side beds need to have the brush and deadfall from last year cleared out, but then are mostly good to go on their own with little interference from me. The rose bushes need to be trimmed back, at least the one on the side of the fence, but I’m nervous about doing that since the ones by the garage didn’t bloom last year after I was rather mercenary in trimming them the year before. Fortunately, I can pr’bly just trim those a little and still cut back the one by the fence rather a lot as it’s quite healthy and vigorous.
I’m taking advantage of my father’s winter planning to make some changes to the back yard. The small deck space, which is virtually unusable for any real purpose, will be extended so that it runs the width of the concrete patio, and the tall fencing will be replaced with something more friendly, at least on the side facing the rest of the patio and my yard. At the same time (or near to it), we’ll be building a pergola to cover most of the rest of the patio. The inside box will be 8×8, with I think an 18″ overhang beyond that on each side and my plan is to train vining plants (more on that later) up and across it to create filtered shade for that portion of the patio. There will be some of the middle that won’t be covered by the pergola or the deck, which is at the moment where I’m planning to put the grill, at least when it’s got stuff burning in it.
The bed by the patio needs rather desperately to be overhauled. I’ve never managed to get all the rock out of the soil, so it’s difficult to work with even in the best of times. It’s also a fairly heavy clay soil, which when combined with the rock is truly painful. I’m trying to figure out the best way to reclaim the bed that won’t require spending days on my hands and knees manually kneeding black soil into the clay and picking out the rocks by hand. But as I have Plans(tm) for that space (see above regarding vines), it will need to be done even if it’s grueling.
I’m also contemplating creation of a smaller bed running along the front edge of the patio. While I have a more or less bare spot at the back of the yard where the raspberries were under the mulberry tree, the back yard has a significant slope to it and that section tends to be very wet when we get a lot of rain. The raspberries never minded this, but I’d prefer to seed that section with grass and use some of the higher ground for another full-sun garden area. At the moment, I’m planning to put strawberries there, so it looks like I’ll be in need of a sodcutter as soon as the ground thaws in order to carve out some space.
I’ve put in an order for veggies and other plants already, but as this has gotten quite long already, I think I’ll save that for another post.
*Well, they weren’t intentionally planted at any rate. The jungle of tomatoes from two years ago re-seeded so I had another quite respectable, if entirely unplanned, tomato jungle in three of them, interspersed with a rather healthy variety of weeds.
KnittyOtters Getting to Know You Contest
I’ve a bit of a weakness for otters, so I couldn’t resist KnittyOtter’s Getting to Know You Contest in honor of her 200th post! Congrats!
(For pictures of recent knitting, skip below the questionnaire..)
1.)How long have you been knitting?
Hrm.. really, pr’bly around 8 or 9 years. I learned pr’bly 10-11 years ago but didn’t really start knitting regularly until I went to grad school.
2.) How long have you been knitting socks?
About as long as I’ve been knitting.. pr’bly a year or so less. I was a bit ambitious and decided that I wanted to do my first socks from cotton.. I know better now – both how better to do cotton socks and that wool is generally more forgiving for socks! I also learned *after* making a few pairs where the toes were twisted out of alignment from the heel that I was twisting each and every stitch, which caused the tube of the sock to spiral on itself. Yeah.. not so useful.
3.) What do you do with a problem like Maria?
Let her loose in those hills and lock the doors. She was terribly romantic, and didn’t really strike me as the survivalist type. At most she’d have made it to the first real Alpine snow fall.
4.) What is your all time favorite sock yarn?
I don’t think I have one, which might be sacrilegious. At the moment, I rather like the Trekking that I started working with.. hrm.. several months ago. Should pr’bly get back around to working on those..
5.) Toe Up or Cuff Down?
Either, both? I like the economy of toe up socks, but there are so many patterns that are cuff down that I can’t be bothered to convert, so I’ll just knit them as written.
6.) What’s your favorite color (this week or for all time)? Do you have a color family/season/palette you prefer? Any colors you just can’t stand?
Blue. (Which brings me back to that lovely Trekking.. really need to pick those up again..) For family or palette or whatnot.. jewel tones, fall colors.. deep, saturated colors. I’m not fond of visually striking combinations in most yarns – the pansy colorway I used for my Jaywalkers still sets my teeth on edge a bit – but I love it in nature. And I really love Ruth’s hand-dyed nature-inspired yarns.. they’re all just so gorgeous!
7.) Do you have a pet(s)?
Yes. One (old) little black dog, Jalapeño, or just Jali for short.
8.) Babies: Oven Roasted or Barbecued?
Grilled, actually, with a little garlic and butter. 
9.) Besides socks what is your favorite type of thing to knit?
Heh. Um, depends on my mood. At the moment, I’ve been stricken with the urge to start sweaters (see below for proof!), but I could just as easily pick up a lace project. *shrug*
10.) What’s your favorite scent?
Mm.. that’s a hard one. There are way too many. Rain. Ocean breezes. Coffee. Campfire smoke. Fajitas. Good wine. Warm skin. Clean sheets dried in the sun. Bacon. Fresh cut grass.
11.) What music are you really loving right now? Like a song or a band?
Went on an Ani kick this weekend while with several friends, but lately I’ve been rather taken with Matt Nathanson, Gaia Consort, and the Paperboys.
12.) How many pairs of socks have you hand knit?
Uh.. Well, I have 8 or 9 in my own sock drawer, and I’ve knit at least that many as gifts, so call it 20ish?
13.) What’s your favorite treat? Salty or Sweet?
Both. There’s a jar of trail mix on my desk that is my ideal snack – peanuts, cashews, almonds, raisins, and M&Ms. As a child, I was inordinately fond of ants on a log and one of my favorite oddities is melted caramel between saltine crackers (think s’mores, but.. different).
14.) What was the most interesting thing you smelled yesterday. Not good or bad necessarily, just the thing that stuck out most so that you actually took notice of it.
Hrm. Shampoo. I’m out of my usual brand so used whatever was handy and I noticed it all day because it wasn’t what I’m used to.
15.) Needles – DPN’s: Wooden, metal or plastic?
Wood or bamboo. Metal is too hard on my hands and plastic just feels wrong. I almost exclusively use Harmony needles these days.
16.) What is your favorite sock pattern that you’ve knit? What do you recommend?
I really liked the 9-to-5 socks, but was also taken enough with Baudelaire to knit it twice.
17.) The last Question: If you were stuck on a deserted island who would you want with you, what knitting would you want with you and would you ever want to leave?
Kim & Tori. And maybe a chef or two. And if the island had good grape stock and clean water, we wouldn’t even need to leave to get more wine.
Right then.. since I’m on the topic, thought I’d post a picture to prove that I actually was knitting this weekend past:
(As usual, all photos are clickable thumbnails.)
That is, in fact, the start of a cabled sweater! Yes, it’s mid-July, but I have hopes of completing it in time to be worn this fall. Given my knitting track record of late, that’s being fairly optimistic, but here’s hoping this is just the little shove I need to get back into the swing of things.
And just because I was out in the garden again last evening, I’ll leave you with a few pictures from there:
These are, again, the Hollyhock from the roses back by the garage, but I don’t remember having all four colors in bloom at the same time in the past, so wanted to be sure to capture it.
This is a blue sea.. something. I never remember the right name.. I just call it the Blue Alien Plant because that’s what it looks like. It’s in the front yard, between a couple balloonflowers which should start blooming any day now.
Beautiful (and Busy) Saturday
(All photos are clickable thumbnails.)
The sky has been this amazing blue all day. Seemed like a good evening to take some pictures of the gardens..
A few weeks ago I was at a friend’s house and couldn’t come up with the name of this plant. Of course, now that my own are blooming, I remember that they’re Hollyhock. These bloom in the rose bushes by the garage…
..almost done for the year, but still lovely and fragrant. There’s been a slight breeze running all day so the whole yard smells of the roses.
We’ve wanted for awhile to clear out the old raspberry patch and Jack got motivated by our plans to have friends over Friday to get it taken care of. It’s created a really gorgeous spot in the backyard that has shade most of the day.. it’s where we spent a large part of yesterday afternoon with our guests.
And this, the tree behind the apple tree, is apparently a Mulberry Tree. Who knew?! *smile* Jack cleaned up some lower branches on both this and the apple tree and we’ll eventually seed grass in the dirt from the raspberry patch to finish things up.
The phlox are starting to bloom in the side garden, and the lilies – nearly as tall as I am – are out in force.
I love the combination of colors in the side garden, and how they stack up when you look up the walk toward the street.
Unfortunately, that was about all the time I got outside today because we were busy inside painting the dining room. Below is a set of before pictures – not terribly exciting, but nice for comparison:
The second corner was hard to get a shot of with decent light – the dining room, while it gets the most natural light of any room except the bedroom, is on the north side of the house, so the light is all indirect. It seems I only took a couple shots after we’d done the first coat..
.. but got the full set again while the second (and final) coat was drying..
The colors are true (enough) on my monitor, but on the camera’s little screen, some of the pictures looked frighteningly bright orange. In reality, it’s a deepish butterscotch color and neither really too orange nor too brown, nor does it really glow. I was afraid it might look more like mustard once we got it on the walls, but I’m very happy with how it turned out. Once it’s really fully dry (tomorrow) we’ll pull the painter’s tape and put the furniture and such back in, which will be the real test for how we like it. I also have plans to stain the doorway into the laundry room (finally) and if I’m going to have the stain out, I’ll also pr’bly do the two closet doors and the top trim from the closet in the bedroom.
How does your garden grow..?
This will be a photo-intensive post, just as a warning for those who may be on dial-up and/or using an RSS feed reader that doesn’t pull the photos through.
I took advantage of some sunshine and nice weather over the weekend and on Monday to get some photos of the early blossomings in the garden. In no particular order (and, as usual, all photos are clickable thumbnails)..
The apple tree in the side yard:
We removed a large and dying tree from the front boulevard last year and replanted a new baby (maple) tree; around the time we were replanting the new tree, our mail carrier left us some daffodil bulbs, so I decided to plant them around the base of the tree. I’m very happy with that decision!
When we removed the large and unsightly bushes from the front porch, we were worried about losing the shade from the afternoon sun on the front porch. The solution we tried last year was to put some garden boxes on the front edge of the porch and plant morning glories but as we weren’t sure it would work, we didn’t want to invest in new garden boxes. It worked well, though, so dad built us some nice new cedar boxes that we installed just below the front edge of the porch:
They’ve been filled with potting soil and I planted morning glory seeds Tuesday morning; I’ll put up some mesh for the vines to climb on in a few weeks once the plants start coming up.
The front garden is still coming in, so I decided last year it needed a little color while things grew. I really liked the Gerber daisies, so got some more for this year:
I hated our mailbox – it was a metal mailbox that had been painted with the same paint they’d used on the house and jerry-rigged to the porch and just altogether ugly. But I also balked at spending upwards of $50 on a new mailbox. Dad came to my rescue and made this one for me for Christmas:
It’s not secured to the porch yet – still need to screw it down – but I’m trying to decide if we want to wait until we re-paint the porch first.
Every year, there’s a lonely little tulip that pops up in the side garden to provide some early color before the rest of the flowers come in. I keep meaning to get it some company…
Again, we needed some color in the front garden, and I wanted to put one of the bird feeders out there for the songbirds that like to nest in the bush by our front door. Last year, I put a basket of Johnny-Jump-Ups out there, but this year I couldn’t resist these deep purple violas:
We have clover all over in our yard, and I love when it blooms before we cut the grass for the first time, so I snapped a couple pictures before Jack mowed Tuesday:
I’m sure as the spring and summer progresses, there will be more pictures from the gardens, but that’s the first batch!
Campus is also a-bloom and I really loved these two, which are right outside the door to the building my office is in, so snapped a couple quick pictures so I could remember them (and if anyone knows by what name I might find either of these, please chime in (yes, I know the flowers are tulips, but I like the multi-colored petals)!):
Up next (like either later today or tomorrow), I’ll prove that I am still (sometimes) knitting! Watch this space for a sneak preview of Cookie A’s new pattern, Ornette!
