Bloomin' Tuesday

Click on the mums to go to Bloomin' Tuesday at Jean's blog. It's a nice way to see a sample of what is going on in different areas of the planet.


This spring is especially exciting for us. We built our garden last May, so this is our first spring with a garden. I am in love with perennials! Every day my husband and I walk hunched over through the garden searching for any new signs of life and commenting on every little spot of green.


I can't even remember all of the different bulbs I planted last fall (much less where I planted them), so we are constantly surprised by new flowers. Things are pretty sparse, but they are alive!


In the vegetable garden, our outdoor rhubarb is finally starting to wake up!


In contrast, the rhubarb in the greenhouse is doing great. Mmm.. looking forward to pie and preserves.


The black September currant is the furthest along of any of the fruiting bushes or trees in the yard. Right now it is still hard to tell what survived and what died. With week long sustained -12 degree temperatures multiple times this winter I wouldn't be surprised if we lost some things.


The flower bed is full of perennials and bulbs coming to life. In a few weeks we should have hyacinths blooming. The dianthus wasn't phased by the snow; it is the sage green mound in the foreground. The Shasta daisy and lavender foliage both stayed green throughout winter and are difficult to make out in the far side of this bed. Painted daisies, blanket flowers, bee balm and phlox are beginning to make an appearance.


The strawberries are coming to life despite looking as if they were flattened by feet of snow. We doubled the size of the strawberry patch last weekend and are condensing the size of the herb patch to better suit our needs/taste buds.


Here is the big picture of what's happening in our garden. The beds have green manure crops growing in them which will be tilled under before our last frost date of June 1st. Thought your growing season was short?


Next blog post... chickens!! Jeff is building a chicken tractor this week and we pick up a few chicks April 22. We're excited to expand the homestead.