Spring is Here!

I love spring! I just want to hang around outside all day long. Everything is growing and blooming and it all smells so good.

Here are some garden highlights:

I love my apple tree! Again it has loads of blooms so I just may get a huge crop of gorgeous, ginormous fruits like last year. Check it out now with its lovely branches reaching for the sky. In another couple months loaded with apples those branches will be bending nearly to the ground. It was frightening waiting for a branch to snap, but nothing broke and it bounced right back. I'll prop the bendy branches up with long sticks like I did last year. I can't wait for fresh apples.

Underneath the apple tree is covered with these beautiful violets. I planted about five tiny plants many years ago. They didn't do anything for years and nearly disappeared then last year they spread like wildfire all over the yard, back and front. Like weeds, but I like a pretty weed. They like shade.

I love these purple flowers located under the plum tree. So bright and cheerful.

This year I planted a purple pot. It's just starting to root. I love those weird looking flowers in the front. Like something from space.

Last year this pot had strawberries in it and sorry to say it was ugly. I think I got two berries the whole summer. It might have done better this year, but I don't have that much patience. I replaced the strawberries with red, pink, and orange flowers many will produce vines and crawl. Once it takes off it should be bright and beautiful.

Raised beds are planted with lettuce, radishes, onions, and carrots. This year I planted the lettuce once a month. This row was planted in March. The other planters have seeds from April and May so hopefully the lettuce growth will be staggered and it won't all be ripe at the same time. Last year it was a lot of lettuce to eat at once. It lasted a long time, but I'll see if this works better.

In my smaller planters this year I grew peas and they are doing very well. I thought they would crawl up the lattice, but they keep reaching for the sun which is in the opposite direction. Oh well!

I had some tatsoi seeds left over from last year.

First allium bloom. Love them.

My lilac bush has gone crazy. I think I should have trimmed it back more as it's not as bushy as it normally is, but big. I also transplanted one of my lilac starts from last year. I'd like to have lilacs all over. I think when it comes time to paint my house I'll paint it purple. I love purple flowers. I think the house should match.

Too funny. This is my smaller raised bed planter with onions and carrots. Before planting seeds I checked to make sure it survived the winter and was sturdy. A few weeks later I planted everything, went out the next day, and the whole bottom had fallen out! Not so sturdy, I guess. All the dirt didn't fall out, just a few of the [very wet] bottom boards and about 6 inches of soaked dirt which made the whole bed sink. I didn't want to waste all those newly-planted seeds and I didn't think it would be helpful to drill into wet wood so I just propped it up with unused buckets and planters. LOL! It's holding together so far!

HAPPY SPRING!