My favorite place in my garden is the little spot just outside my bedroom. It cheers me even on the dreariest of days--like today. Mostly perennials in pinks and blues, it changes with the seasons, resting in the shade of an old cherry tree. On sunny days I often find myself here to meditate or just escape from the busy world outside my garden gate. This photo was taken in early May. Tulips, pansies and forget-me-nots are now being replaced by columbine, coral bells and Jacob's ladder. Soon to come are oriental poppy, iris and astible.

Rain and weeds

I guess this will be a cool weather veggie year. So far at least, my sugar peas are so happy, they are tendrilling all over the place. I would like to give them some strings even though they are bush peas - just so they feel all comfy and start producing blossoms and pea pods soon thereafter! It is raining so much at my house that the weeds I pulled and just let lay, assuming they would die and add to the nutrition of the soil under them, are surviving and getting bigger!!! Even though their roots are totally out of the ground! Sheesh!
Another obnoxious weed that I have been pulling is the ever lovely (not) quack grass! Hate it! I am so paranoid that my compost pile won't be hot enough to kill the roots of these that I am instead tossing them in my garbage can. Their roots are so strong I don't trust them at all!! Does anyone have any advice about quack grass? Or wild morning glories? We have a million of those too.
I planted the Black Russian tomato that Dixie had extra of, and a few that I purchased down at the fruit and veggie stand on the Maple Valley highway. Need heat for all these to thrive. Some dahlias I planted are looking a little yellow from no sun too. Pray for sun, not too hot though - kinda demanding aren't I?

Tomatoes, anyone?

My sister in Puyallup has the greenest thumb of anyone I know. Right now she has so many tomato starts that she as a table on the street in front of her house selling them for .50 each. She has red and yellow (very sweet) grape tomatoes, heirloom, stupice,. Granny Smith (never turns red, but tastes great), roma, one or two bred for pots, and I forget what else. There are about a dozen varietiesLet me know if you want any, I'm running down there May 25 or 26 to pick up mine.

the new residents

Ok, so I mentioned old and new residents in our garden. Of course the old resident is the deer in the pic of the last post. Here are the new residents, although they must be cold waiting for their gnome home to be completed. I'll show you that when it happens - heehee. They just arrived on Mother's day.

Veggies Tuesday 3

Here is the deer for which we had to put up the deer netting! Isn't she pretty? That day she was eating dandelion leaves - wish she would keep doing that! The next photo is our set up for sifting rocks out of our dirt pile. Good stuff and we add some compost from our pile of that and sometimes some potting soil with the moisture control beads in it.

Third photo is our rock pile as mentioned in the previous post. The last photo is Sheila and I planting beet seeds a couple weeks ago. They are just barely up, but growing!! You can really see the deer fence netting in that one.

veggies Tuesday 2

th These photos are the strawberries that are in bloom but are still small (they will get bigger I'm sure) and the spinach seedlings and the onion sets that came up so nicely. If you look close you can see the deer fence netting in both photos.

Veggies inside the deer fence

Let's see if I can get more photos up -

I want to show you our deer fence netting up close, my beautiful snap peas and other veggies on their way. Also the dirt/rock sifting process mentioned in Mr. B's post comments, the new residents of our back yard, one old resident and the rock pile that I think will surprise and stun even the most faithful rock gatherers among us.

deer fencing

Here are some pictures of our veggie garden progress, some may appear in later posts - 1st time I've tried to add photos.

This is the fenced in area, the boxes were built last year and planted with lettuce, beets, beans, strawberries and a few other things. The deer came and grazed off the beans (although we did get quite a few of the ones hanging down inside the plants), peas and beet greens. The other post lists this year's veggies.

Veggie seeds

So, where is the sun? The weekend was wonderful but so busy with other things that the garden had to wait. And then, and then . . . the sun took a vacation I guess. Oh, well. It will be back.
I will post pix soon, maybe later today, of our new deer fence around the veggie boxes we built last year. So far planted in there is bush peas, red and green cabbage, broccoli raab, spinach, onion sets and beets. Sheila came over a couple weeks ago and helped plant the beet seeds and they are very tiny, but up! She loves pickled beets so we are going to try to grow enough to do that by the end of the season. Doris Mech gave me some giant beet seeds to try, she said they could get 3 inches across or more and still be tender and nice to eat. The grand experiment of the year. We planted two kinds of yellow beets, one I hadn't tried before, and 4 different varieties of red beets.
more later, my friends!!
Verdelle

Rock Garden to Vegetable Garden

Hi! Mr. B checking in. The raised bed garden is a slow difficult process. Our house is built on glacial till, great for drainage, not so good for a vegetable garden. Digging in the yard means starting with a pick axe and adding plenty of soil amendments to have a chance at something growing. If rocks were dollars we would be millionaires.

Here is the first section going in. The dirt pile in the background needs to be dug up and sifted.

The dirt pile is gone and the second section is complete. The rock pile grows.

The easy up makes working in the rain more tolerable. Section three being dug out and sifted.

Section three boxed in and partially filled with dirt. Section four (and last) is mostly dug out and sifted. The back section is the site the future garden/storage building. Lots of progress... so much more to do. Way in back against the fence is Anna B.'s little green house. I'll try to do a post about how that is working for us. Also a post on the rock sifting operation might be worthwhile.

Mr. B.

P.S. Anyone want to buy any rocks? They're only a dollar a piece... While they last. ;)