Veggies-Memorial Day Weekend

Here come the potatoes. This row of potatoes are Yukon Gold, and are an early variety.
Three tomato plants this year. From Left to Right: Sweet 100's, Beefsteak, Early Girl. The bare bed in back has corn planted. At the time of this picture the sprouts were not yet up, however, as of yesterday (May 27) they were up in all six rows. I had to cover these with brown paper bags last night due to frost.
At the top of the picture is the first sowing of Encore Lettuce Mix. Immediately in front and behind this patch are carrots. Toward the front of the picture is the second sowing of Encore Lettuce Mix. Again there are carrots planted next to this lettuce bed as well.

To the left is the first sowing of Tropicana Lettuce. This bed of lettuce was nearly destroyed with our fence repair. The little seedlings were entirely covered by dirt because a worker was walking on this bed. I carefully removed the clumps of dirt and was able to salvage a good number of seedlings, which are now growing into leafy lettuce. On the right is the second sowing of Tropicana. In front and in between the beds is Swiss Chard-Bright Lights Variety. These plants will have a greenish leaf, but the spines will be bright purple, yellow, and red. This should give a brilliant color to this area of the garden.
You can easily tell which was the first and second sowing of Sugar Snap Peas-Sugar Ann variety.
Close up of the first sowing. You can see the tendrills reaching out for support.
Same bed of peas as above. The Jericho Lettuce has emerged but is slow to grow. I'm sure the cold weather has much to do with that.

Flower Update

This is one large Peonie. This area gets the most spring sun, so this one usually matures the quickest. Big flower buds are visible now. Should open fairly soon.
Quick picture looking down the wall...try not to look at the dandelion patch too much.
Day lillies in back (green bushy plants), Tiger Lillies off the corner of the garage, Holly bush on the right, and my favorite plant in this area....the cactus. It is covered in buds which will either flower or turn in to new cactus leaves.
Tulips on each side, Iris behind the tulips, Dianthus between the tulips and a Gerber Daisy in the middle. The Gerber Daisy was a birthday present for Vony from Nick and Holli.

Raspberry Wine plant has taken over this space. On the left, there is a Dwarf Phlox growing amidst the chaos of green foliage.
The two Neon Sedums have come back nicely. They did not look too well at the end of the season last year.
The daffodils have finally lost all their blooms. The iris plants in this section of the yard are beginning to develop the stem for the flower. In back, there are lillies which line the fence.
The Pasque flower is by far my favorite so far this spring. This perennial continues to produce abundant blooms which are very colorful and have a pleasant fragrance. The Sedum in back is growing fast now.

Perennials

I finally got around to doing something about the front of the house. I used a pitchfork to loosen the dirt (although it was more like concrete), then tilled it with the rototiller. After an application of leaf mulch, Father Dom's Duck Doo, and Peat Moss, I tilled it again. Now the soil is very soft and I was able to dig the holes for the perennials by hand. We chose shade perennials due to the lack of sunshine this part of the yard gets. They are a mixture of Coral Bells-3 varieties, Tiarellia-2 varieties, and 2 Hostas. Enjoy the pictures.

Early Flowers

This is the Pustillia flower. We planted this last year, but past it's bloom, so this is the first time we have seen the flowers. It opens during the day, and closes at night. Very brilliant colors. There are many more buds emerging at the base of the plant so this should be a good flower producer for the rest of the spring and probably into the summer.

One of many Peonie plants. You can clearly see the flower buds. I still need to prune off the smaller buds to encourage larger flowers.
Dafodils are coming to an end, but have been open for about 3 weeks now. The Iris plants are not yet showing buds, and the lillies in the back have multiplied and are emerging.
The small green plant in the bottom left, is the Phlox. It's partner did not come back this year. The large green vinelike plant is Bee Balm-Rasperry Wine. This sprawling plant emits a pleasant fragrance when you brush the leaves. Flowers should be emerging shortly. We did not see this plant bloom last year either.
Lots more to come.....stay tuned.

Welcome to the 2008 Garden Blog

Here are the first Garden pictures for 2008. Below, is a photo of the Encore lettuce mixture that I planted last year as well. Above and below the lettuce you will see some whispy thin greens. Those are two different varieties of carrots. I planted all of this on April 20th. At the very bottom of the picture there is the second planting of Encore lettuce beginning to emerge. On the right of the picture is the Sugar Ann Peas (sugar snap peas). These were also planted on April 20th. They only grow to around two feet, as opposed to the 6 ft vines I had with a different variety last year. On the left side of the picture, you can see small two leaved plants. This is Jericho Romainne Lettuce. The thicker patch above was planted April 20th, and the smaller seedlings toward the bottom were planted on May 6th.
Below is another view of the peas.
One of my favorite plants every year is this cactus. It lays flat and shrivelled up on the ground all winter. Then as the sun angle gets higher, and temps begin to warm, the cactus stands up at attention. The needles begin to fill out and grow longer and then buds start to form on the spines of the leaves. You may be able to notice the brown buds, which will turn into beautiful yellow flowers in a few weeks.
Just a picture looking at the south wall of the garden. At the far end is a rose bush, tulips, other flowers, lettuce and peonie plants dividing each planting bed. The cucumbers and yellow squash will occupy the two vacant beds in the middle of this wall very soon.