welcome to spring

our area got a whole lot of rain at the beginning of april.  which finally allowed our horrible looking yard to turn a rich shade of green.  and to grow at an alarming rate.  so the rain, plus a few other little distractions, made it hard for ross to get out and mow it for several weeks.

so then it looked like this:

but last weekend he finally got out to mow (and even got to “cheat” by borrowing our neighbor’s riding lawn mower – ours is a push mower, aka “would’ve taken 6 hours to mow”)

left: unmowed grass,  right: mowed grass

and voila, the after.  much better.

and now for a casual stroll around our yard.  i love when our yard finally starts to come back to life.

grape hyacinths.  we have them everywhere.

our one lone yellow tulip in the back mulch bed…

and the one lone daffodil right beside it.  must plant more bulbs back there this fall so these two don’t seem so random.  which right now, they are.

seedum, transplanted from the mother-in-law’s house a few years ago and growing really well.

more seedum.  this stuff is so pretty for not having any flowers.

gratuitous puppy pic!

and in the front yard:

on either side of our front porch we have tulips, more grape hyacinths, and creeping phlox – since they’re all in bloom at the same time it really jazzes up the front of the house without me having to do any work.  love me some perennials.

and tah-dahhhh!  garden 2k11 has begun!

ross had a work thing up in roanoke earlier this week and was kind enough to buy me some pepper seedlings at the roanoke farmer’s market.  these seedlings (red, yellow, and orange bell peppers) look soo much better than what i can usually get my pepper seedlings to look like and i’m A-OK with not growing them from seed this year.

all we did was transplant them from their plastic 4-pack into larger pots, where they’ll await their final transplant into the garden sometime in mid may.  can’t wait.

and finally, i started my tomato seeds – the only seeds i’ll be growing under lights this year.  everything else will get direct-seeded into the garden in may along with the peppers.

this year’s tomatoes:  amish paste (like a roma), black cherry (a purpleish cherry), carbon (purple beefsteak), german red strawberry (red beefsteak), and moneymaker (small, very round red tomato).

gratuitous baby pic!  our little future farmer (i told him we’d call him a farmer and not a gardener so he could sound more masculine – think that will convince him to help mom in the garden?)

garden update – early july

shots snapped in the garden last weekend.

early summer harvest

i’m harvesting a handful of beans every day along with lettuce + herbs enough for 2 generous salads.  throw in 3-5 new ripe strawberries a day (not bad for the little guys’ first season) and the harvest has definitely begun in the garden.  last saturday, ross and i broke out the grill and made an amazing meal of grilled rib-eye (from a friend’s farm in blacksburg), grilled peppers/onions/our own green beans tossed in EVOO and herbs, and a heaping side of our own salad.  now all i need is a tomato to make me feel complete.

speaking of tomatoes, the tomatoes, squash and peppers aren’t ready yet, but they’re getting there.

i’ve decided that late june/early july is my favorite time of year for the flowers in the front yard.  nearly everything is in bloom and there’s so much color up there!

what’s growin on: june 3

i hate blog posts with no pictures, so i promise i’ll add some when i finally get them on my computer. i mean, honestly, it’s june already and i still haven’t posted any pictures that actually show the trees with leaves!  this will all be remedied.  6/4 UPDATE: pics below!!

in the meantime, this is what’s going on in a nutshell:

- i bought an entire flat of strawflowers  (here’s what they’ll eventually look like) from the farmer’s market and planted them in a small bed next to our garage.  i hope to fill it in more with some zinnias.  both are annuals, but are prone to reseeding themselves.  let’s hope.

- all of the boxes have been constructed, filled with soil, and marked into square foot grids.

- ross and i have done a lot of weeding – in the front, in the back mulch bed, and in the garden.  we’re not all there yet, but much better.

- our peonies are blooming!  i have two different types: one light pink that had it’s biggest blooms yet, and one dark pink that bloomed for the first time this year.

- we’ve been wracking our brains to figure out a system to make all of my climbing veggies happy and not sprawling all over the ground – aka some sort of trellis system.  we’ll be putting that little experiment to the test this weekend.  more to follow.

- everything but the basil survived a random frost we had two weeks ago.  i’ve reseeded some of it, but this year i may just have to give in and buy basil seedlings.

- already growing: garlic, shallots, strawberries (tribute), red and yellow onions, two rosemary bushes, and potatoes (yukon gold and banana fingerling)

- now planted: 4 red peppers from the farmer’s market (carmen), 2 of each of the 3 peppers i grew from seed (Orange Bell, Red Belgian, Golden Treasure), two types of bush beans (one green variety and one yellow), spinach (bloomsdale longstanding), dill, oregano, cilantro (not sure if that will make it), a couple types of lettuce that may or may not make it, 2-3 of each variety of tomato i grew from seed (Roman Candle, Green Zebra, Moneymaker, Carbon, German Red Strawberry, Wes, Yellow Pear, and Sungold), squash (horn of plenty and white bush scallop), zucchini (costada romanesco), pie pumpkins (winter luxury pie), cucumbers (diva), and watermelon (white sugar lump).  i know it sounds like a lot, but there really isn’t that much of any one plant.  just small amounts of a lot of varieties.  so we’ll see how they do.

- nabbed some free oregano off of freecycle, so should have a nice crop of that this year.  also nabbed two types of sedum from the mother-in-law and planted them in front of the garage.  our clematis (planted last year) is blooming in front of the garage as well.

- i’m sure there’s more, but those are the highlights.  the most important task right now is a trellising system to keep everything growing up and not everywhere like some sort of plant vomit.

p.s. this is my 100th post on almost eden!

garden tour – april 16 edition

finally got out to snap a few pictures this morning of all the slow but steady progress around the yard and garden.  i apologize for the picture quality – didn’t get a chance to touch these up at all.  oh well, you’ll get the idea.

the front window boxes.  hopefully the hot pink ladies on each end will start filling in and cascade down the sides of the box.

left side view.  planted two pots with white petunias and lavender and yellow pansies.  the tulips are almost in bloom!

the enormous pile of mulch that will get spread on all the flower beds this weekend.  thankfully we’re supposed to have really nice weather.

Now we’re stepping into the seed room/garage were all the plants are kept.

these are all different varieties of tomatoes. (Green Zebra and Carbon mostly)

a little tub of two different types of lettuce

here’s the basil that’s started to really get big.  i may have to split this pot into two so they’ll have enough room.

bell peppers.  like i said, they’re doing so-so, because not all of them have sprouted. it’s possible that it may not be warm enough, even with the space heater. (which we’ve turned off by the way because its become the bane of our power bill’s existence)  at least the ones that are up are doing well

the whole shebang.  the really leafy pots behind the seed trays are different herb seedlings we purchased at Southern States a few weeks ago (onion chives, rosemary, and dill) and two tomato plants.  I’m just waiting until it’s warm enough to plant them outside.

Buttercrunch lettuce seedlings that desperately need to be transplanted, but i don’t have soil in the boxes yet!  just not enough time in the day. 

the final layout of the garden (we just added the 4′x8′ box in the back right).  we’ve also planted both onions and potatoes in the 4′x4′ box on the back left.  grow! grow!

ye faithful compost pile.  this back corner will be its permanent home so we’ll always have easy access.  this past weekend the thermometer in it read 130 degrees.  so it’s definitely working

so that’s the tour for now.  after this weekend there should be a lot more to see.