Decision made

This morning, my car turned into the garden center all on it's own. This seems to happen on a regular basis during gardening season. *chuckle*
Today I was going in to look for rhubarb plants, but instead, came home with two very nice blueberry bushes. For quite some time I had been considering growing a couple of blueberry bushes, as I am not too excited by the cost of fresh or frozen berries and I do love these berries on cereal, as jam or in a pie.
The little bit of research I had done on blueberry plants told me they were large bushes and would not be suitable for my 20x20 foot garden patch, so I had almost given up on the idea of growing my own berries.
Eric who is a friend, and also happens to be a very knowledgeable employee of the garden center, happened to walk by when I was looking at rhubarb plants. We had a discussion about rhubarb, then I mentioned how much I would like to have blueberries but the bushes were too large. I was ecstatic to learn there are dwarf varieties of blueberries and arrived home with the two varieties Eric suggested for my plot.

I chose one plant to bear fruit throughout the summer, and the other mid to late season.

The fall color of this plant will be a nice addition to the garden.

Now I have my two blueberry bushes, fertilizer, and instructions on the planting and after care, I am anxious to get outside tomorrow, to plant the blueberry bushes.
Of course, you know, I will have to make another trip to the garden center, for the rhubarb I forgot in my excitement over finding the blueberry bushes.

I am ready

This year I am on top of all the plans I have for my vegetable garden.

I have made a graph of my 20 by 20 foot garden with all the raised beds, tires and other small containers drawn to scale. I then read through my Square Foot Gardening book, and flagged the pages I will be wanting to refer to, highlighting all the relevant information in neon yellow. I also took my garden calendar and filled in all the planting days of the various vegetables, for the whole season.
Whew! what an undertaking, but it is all worth the effort for a newbie veggie gardener as I am.

I took my layout to a stationary store to have it laminated, and while there, bought a couple of dry erase markers to write on my laminated layout. Having erasable markers enables me to write on the laminated page, and erase my notes if I change my mind on the location of the seeds and plants. Rather than going out to the garden when it is time for planting, and standing there trying to make up my mind where everything is to be planted, I will already have it all planned out. I will also be able to use the same layout year after year and will have a record of the vegetables, which need to be rotated to a new location the following year.

Visitors to my garden

The chorus from the birds every day, heralds spring. Red wing Blackbirds, Robins, Flickers, Starlings, Sparrows, Juncos, and many, many, more are all singing their songs to attract a mate.

These two Flickers have taken time to visit one of the feeders I have outside my den window. They really are handsome birds, with their black, brown, cream and orange colors.

A female Red Wing Black bird waits patiently in a tree, for the flickers to leave the feeder, so she can have some birdseed. I will attempt to get a picture of the male Blackbird, showing off the bright orange feathers on his wings.

A promise

46F degrees, and a beautiful sunny, but cool day, to wander around the yard looking to see what is growing.
I am happy to see so many spring bulbs pushing their way up into the sunshine, giving me that little rush of adrenalin knowing the the first day of spring is just four weeks away.

Tulips--Zurel, Greenland, Magier, Scarlet Pimpernel, to name just a few

Daffodils and Tulips. The daffs. are Texas

Hyacinths

Daffodils, in bud

Asiatic Lilly

Two years ago, or is it three, I planted 250 spring bulbs. There are Tulips, Daffodils, hyacinths, Grape Hyacinths, Asiatic Lillies, and a few other bulbs I cannot recall the names of at this time.
Oh! what a promise of glorious colour there is. I am impatient to see it all.