Scrumptious color everywhere

Since we have had some warmer weather, the flowers are showing off their beauty.

First harvest of the season

The lettuce needed thinning.

Nothing goes to waste around here. The good lettuce leaves will make a very nice salad, the not so nice ones I tossed to the rabbit sitting outside the garden gate, and the kale will be for our pet rabbit, Bun.

My little bit of whimsy

I am a sucker for yard art which I usually find at yard sales. This wee spot of garden is filled with all manner of "yard art"

There is a goose, and half a broken clay pot adding a little interest.

The lovely glass bird bath Mr C gave me for Christmas, takes pride of place.

Found three flower shaped stepping stones at a yard sale, but thought them too unstable to use as such, so they are for decoration only.

And this cute hedgehog was a bargain I found at a end of year sale at one of the large chain stores.
So there you have it, a little bit of my um! yard art, and there is plenty more of it scattered throughout the other garden areas.

Mini hoop houses over my raised beds

Early February I sowed lettuce, kale, pea and beet seeds in the first of my raised beds, and made a mini hoop house to protect them and provide them a cozy environment to get an early start. I am most pleased with the result, as you can see everything is growing extremely well.

Tomorrow I plan on thinning the lettuce. At the far end is a trellis, which will support the scarlet runner beans I planted today. I grow scarlet runner beans first for their wonderful flavor, and second, because they have the most beautiful scarlet flowers.

The mini hoop houses are very easy to construct using this tubing I bought from Ace hardware, some brackets and floating row cover to cover them once constructed.

Here is a bracket held in place with deck screws, and the tubing which has been cut to length, pushed down through the bracket. The same was done on the opposite side of the raised bed. It is very secure and does not flop over.

The whole structure is then covered using the floating row cover material which comes as a 5x50' piece and can be cut to fit. I use bricks to hold down the sides and wooden clothes pins to hold the two pieces together where needed.

This hoop house took only about 15 minutes to construct today. Growing here are bush beans, Swiss chard, which I over wintered, kale, peas at this end of the garden, and at the far end I will plant cucumbers when the weather is warmer, these will also have a trellis to climb.

I still have more cleanup to do, and hopefully tomorrow the weather will be as beautiful as it was today.

The two tires towards the rear, house strawberry plants the other three will be for tomatoes. I think the raised bed, bottom left, will be where I grow summer squash.

Bedraggled daffodils

My favorite daffs are starting to open up, but last night they were pelted by the downpour we had. I know as the day progresses, they will perk right up again.

I would love to get my fingers dirtier

Oh Man! if only the sun would stay out for more than an hour at a time. Our spring has, for the most part, been dull and lacking in the sunshine department. My vegetable garden seeds have been sown in installments, in that, I have been sowing seeds every time there has been an hour, or even half an hour when it has not been raining or a very cold wind blowing.
Today I stood under the carport and re-potted the little tomato plants into the next size larger pots. I strip all but the topmost leaves off the tomato plants, and bury them up to just below the leaves in the new pots. More roots will grow from the buried stem making for a healthier plant. I will re-pot the tomatoes a couple more times until they are in gallon size pots, from there they will go out into the garden when the weather warms up. I did have plans to sow some parsnip seeds, but it started to rain and it does not look as as though it is going to let up any time soon. Oh well! I have lost the mood for gardening any more today so I think I will go and read for a while.

I believe my 'thumbs are becoming greener'

2009 I purchased the lovely Fritillaria and placed it in with ferns in this wooden planter. Last year I moved it into my shaded "woodland garden"

April 2011 it has rewarded me with two much larger blooms on one stem. I had been told this is not the easiest of plants to grow, but it appears, it likes the conditions I have provided, and hopefully it will continue to grow into a larger plant with even more blooms.

Wordless Wednesday

Varied thrush

At last, some color and fragrance in my garden

Holy Mole!

This little gem of an Amaryllis has been sleeping in the basement during the winter, until it was brought upstairs on the 15th of March, re-potted and watered. I can hardly believe my eyes on how fast it is growing.

March 17th

March 18th

March 21st

March 22nd

It seems I am hopeless when it comes to

over wintering geraniums, but it appears I have a green thumb when it comes to begonias.

Last year I bought this lovely Bonfire begonia and at the end of the season I decided to see if I would have any luck in over wintering it.

About three weeks ago I began giving the plant a very little water, then just last week I noticed a very tiny bud had appeared. The past few days the plant has grown at an astonishing rate.



As the Bonfire begonia is growing on one side of the pot, I have planted this yellow begonia on the opposite side so it won't look so lopsided.

I think several hanging pots of begonias will look lovely surrounding the shaded front entry into our house, so here is a photo of the packet of begonias I have chosen to grow in the second hanging pot.

I have had success in overwintering Amaryllis but that is a post for another day.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Mother Nature was kind to me today

I have had to pick the times for gardening these past few weeks. If it wasn't raining it was too windy, and if the rain and wind weren't keeping me indoors, then the cold was. There have been a couple of occasions when the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, and I was able to get out into the veggie garden, dig in some fertilizer and plant some seeds.

Yesterday was a day of wind, rain, and 'lo and behold' a little sunshine. As soon as the sun came out, I grabbed up my packets of seed, a box of vegetable fertilizer, the gardening tools and prepared myself to get the job done.
I managed to get the seeds planted, did a little more cleanup, put all the tools away and went indoors for a nice hot cup of tea, when the skies opened, and down came the rain. Thank you Mother Nature for granting me a small window of clear weather, to get my chores done.

This past week I have heard the mating songs of the robins and juncos, heralding the coming of Spring. Crocus are blooming and daffodils are very close to showing their pretty faces too. I just love this time of year with all the changes of rebirth.

Today I took this photo of kale, on the right and peas, left, which were planted February 10th. This is the first year I have planted so early in the season, and I thought if I sheltered the seeds under a row cover for protection from the elements, perhaps I would get a jump on the season, and I did.
I have been waiting to get beet and carrot seeds planted but the weather has not co-operated, maybe this weekend I can dodge the rain showers and get them in the ground.

Yay! the sun came out, at least for a little while.

I have been waiting, it seems like for many weeks to get back out into the vegetable garden to plant more seeds. Finally, this afternoon the sun came to warm up the day to where it was very comfortable outdoors.
I took advantage of the lovely day to check on the kale and pea seeds I planted almost a month ago, and found they are starting to sprout, then I planted another row of peas, sugar snap this time, and some loose leaf lettuce seeds. Tomorrow, weather permitting, I plan on planting beets and radishes. Of course everything is snuggled under row covers for protection from the elements and birds.

Blogger Award

Patsi of Garden Endeavors has very kindly passed on this award for my efforts on Keewee's Garden. I don't really "do awards" Being a person of few words, and at this time of the year, drowning in the winter blahs, I find nothing much of interest to blog about.
So thank you Patsi for being one of my readers, shedding a ray of sunshine, and cheering me up with the award.

Peas & Kale in the ground

Today it was a balmy 45 degrees outdoors, but in my little protected vegetable garden it felt closer to 50 degrees. I took advantage of the lovely weather to put in a row of Green Arrow shell peas, which is a variety I have not grown before, so I will have to wait and see how they do. A row of Lacinato kale was also planted alongside the peas.

Got down on my hands and knees to pull more weeds from the gravel walkways surrounding the raised beds. Thankfully the weeds come up without any effort, so I am pleased I am almost done with the weeding, that is for now anyway.

Lovely weed free walkways around the beds.

I am getting that 'Spring tingle' and am ready to get started on the garden, but know it is early yet, as the official day for start of Spring is well over a month away, so I must curb my exuberance.

You may be knee deep in snow, and I am not

Here in the Pacific Northwest we have had a relatively mild winter.

This morning, I decided to begin cleaning up my vegetable garden. The weeds are starting to take over and it is much easier to pull them when the ground is damp and the soil still loose. I pulled most of the weeds from the raised beds, and next I have to work on getting rid of the ones growing on the paths surrounding the beds.

The weeds growing in the gravel surrounding the raised beds and recycled car tires I grow veggies in, are relatively easy to pull, but I gave up after about an hour as it is still too cold to stay out for too long. My fingers were quite painful until they warmed up. I will do just a little cleanup as the weather permits. I am going to get the peas in the raised beds very soon, and place row covers over them.

Sedum is making an appearance.

Daffodils in a pot by the front door .

And the Blueberries are starting to bud. I sure hope we don't get a severe cold snap as I am sure the blueberries will not survive.

Now! what to do about this little guy/gal. It really is the cutest , most friendly little creature, but it has made a home in my fenced front garden. Yes I did say fenced, a fence which is two feet tall surrounds the flower garden and this is the only rabbit which has jumped over the fence easy as you please. I have sprayed, on several occasions, Liquid fence around the perimeter of the garden and also all over the plants. The rabbit took off the first time the spray came near it, but it is there back inside the fence every morning. I guess I will just have to get the spray out and chase it away every time I see it. Perhaps in this way I can at least discourage it from being inside the fence.

Brrrr! I am ready to welcome Spring

This morning we have frost coating the outdoors, and our furnace decided to quit. Fortunately all it took was a push of the reset button, and away it went. I hate being cold.
On cold days like this, my thoughts wander to the upcoming Spring, and what flowers I will grow this season. A few days ago I bought myself a small bouquet of flowers and nestled in amongst the carnations and mums was one lovely Gerbera. In the past, I have seen these lovely plants in the local garden center, but passed them by going instead for annuals I know will do well here. This year however, I think I will try my luck at growing gerberas, as the flowers are so pretty and last for quite a while in a vase.
Have any of you living here in the Pacific Northwest had any luck growing gerberas, and if so what hints do you have to pass on?