Three Great Things

This is one of my favorite times in the garden in spring.  My major planting is done (I use a square foot method that means I will keep adding rotational planting all year long). My garden is full of perennial color, and has moved from my early tulips, elephant ear and grape hyacinths to later tulips, daffodils, flox and narcissus, so I have watched the first color transition. Finally, I am eating what I am growing.

Early eating in my yard is mostly chives and asparagus. Yesterday I had enough of my own garden produce to make a salad with three types of greens, and a basil and chive flatbread for supper. Today I'll use up a bunch or rhubarb and eat some asparagus (which is actual awesome raw out of the garden). This early munching starts a full season of eating as much as I can from what I grow.

Wanting to eat as much as I can of what I grow is actually why I stagger my planting the way I do. Next week I will plant more peas, beans and greens.  Because of the types I use and the staggered planting, I will be eating beans from June to September, but I won't freeze very much.  I was raised in a more traditional planting pattern where the goal was eating and bulk preserving, but this is less work and more flavor. I still freeze a lot of my fruit crops (no way to stagger plantings) and preserve crops that have too long a season for me to grow multiple plantings, but I love the squarefoot planting where I can do it.

The waves of color are my favorite part, and I am out in my yard as much as I can be. It was mostly rainy last week, which is not a bad thing to help seeds germinate, and it also prolonged some of early tulips, which are starting to drop their petals now. I have a wide variety of types of tulips (check out the types online), but only a few of each, as I am too cheap to buy lots and wait for them to reproduce. I love my new ones with feathered edges. 

My back yard pallet is mostly purples, pinks and whites - see the full pictures in the album. In the spring, it is made up of bulbs, snowcrop, flox and other early ground covers.  I pick matching annuals for my boxes and some pansies, inpatients and snapdragons to round out the color.  As the year progresses, my iris bloom, and then my lilies and late bulbs (like gladiolas).





This last tulip (Mike's current fav - he calls it the fire tulip) is from my front yard, where the pallets are warm colors like reds, yellow and oranges. Tulips, daffodils, poppies, crocus and narcissus are my early color.  You can see from last week's pictures that it starts mostly with red and yellow, then this week moves more towards yellow with some orange.

I go out each day and see what is new and what is starting to fade. Later in the season I start grazing on the fruits and vegetables as I wander. This week, as soon as it stops raining, I will go out an pick a new bouquet, some rhubarb and some more asparagus. There is nothing like a hobby that keeps changing while you are gone. There is always something to see or do. The highlight of this week was vase with fern and lily-of-the-valley, which Leo called "the best ever."

Planting and flowers

After complaining last week about nothing blooming, my yard is already full of flowers.  Mike took a few pictures for me early in the week, and we'll lake more this weekend as we plant. This album gives a good sense of the start of the week, though.

In the last couple nights I have been planting a variety of annuals and veggies throughout the front yard.  I co-plant my veggies and fruit there, and love to disguise my vegetables with flowering items. I put in 4 types of tomatoes, 6 types of peppers, a variety of squashes and some onions. Mike seeded spinach for me, and it is already up. We are also eating rhubarb and asparagus (Mike made a great risotto with the asparagus Wednesday).

Currently blooming perennials and vegetables:

• 7 types of tulips
• Crocus 
• Grape hyacinths
• Poppies (yellow)
• Apple tree
• Cherry tree (2)
• Daffodils
• Flox (pink and purple)
• Johnny jump ups (think wild violets)
• Strawberries
• Elephant Ears
• Snowcrop
• Columbine

All this planting and blooming is very heartening. It is supposed to rain tomorrow, but should be dry by Sunday, when the main garden in planted. Luckily Mike got all the tilling done yesterday, so we'll be ready despite the rain.

Finally Out

After my return from Montreal I was feeling pretty down. It rained the entire time until yesterday and my bedding plants were destroyed while I was in Kitchner-Waterloo visiting Greta, Gus and their kids. My whole gardening habit seemed dead, or at least washed up. To the left is my basil as it as starting to die. Looks okay but a little limp right? It was dead in under a week.

On Friday, my thoughtful husband took me to Dutch Growers, where I had a gift certificate from Teela is spend. I actually laughed out loud with pleasure when I saw all the plants. We spent too much money replacing heirloom tomatoes and peppers that dies, and we could not afford to replace Mike's basil habit. All if it reminded me how much money it saves us to start our own things in the grow table and greenhouse. This would be an expensive pastime without them.

Today and yesterday I came home from work and spent a least a 1/2 hour in my yard having a zen moment. I examined all the plants that seem to leaping forward, and found my first flower, a Johnny Jump-Up (technically a weed). Last year at this time my first flower was a strawberry, and I had all types of things up, like asparagus.  Not even a tip so far this year with the unseasonable cold and rain in the last two weeks. If it were like last year, I'd have at least 5 types of flowers by next week.

The little bit of green I have up and the growth in the last few days has been really encouraging. Even if it is not all is great, I can see the hope in my yard now that I am finally out.