In the Garden

We got a lovely dose of rain last week and almost overnight things around our place greened up with a delightful spring vibe.  

Grape Hyacinths along the driveway.  Peonies are bringing up the rear.

A few flowers are blooming already, but most are rapidly stretching their leaves toward the sun, working up to their moment of glory.  The trees and bushes are budding out--including the serviceberry bush that Matt bought me for my birthday last year.  I had been so certain it wasn't going to make it since we planted it in one of the hottest, driest summers I can remember.

Ginger thinks the air conditioning unit is a keen sunbathing locale.  At least until we uncover it and start using it in a month or two, that is.  

Our neighborhood bunny friends--Black Bunny and Patches--are racing in circles of twitterpation in the front yard.  Peas and greens are emerging in wee little rows in the garden beds.  Ginger wants to be outside all day long again.  It stays light out so much later.  It is an especially grand time of year.  

Greens and herbs are usually the first crops ready from our garden.  The bok choy are ready for eating as we speak.  The mint we put in last year is coming back strong.

Wednesday morning I was walking through the dewy grass to open some windows in the greenhouse.  The birds were singing and the sun was shining and... it just made me stop in my tracks and marvel at it all.  Everything was so sparkly and beautiful.  So fresh and invigorating.  So vibrant and evocative.  So alive!  I really do love the spring.  So much life and hope bursting forth all around me.

A backyard panorama from shed on the east to ditch pipe on the west.  I was standing at the greenhouse door when I snapped this one.

Matt made a new door for the greenhouse this week.  The old one got ruined in a wind storm over the winter.  The former was a Dutch style door.  When Matt initially designed the greenhouse we thought this would be beneficial for ventilation.  In the end, we didn't really use it much in this capacity so the new door is a simpler format.  Matt was rather pleased he used only scraps of the greenhouse plastic in the door re-make project.  He crafted it from 2x2s instead of 2x4s so it is lighter and easier to open/close, too.  All in all, a vast upgrade.  The seedlings are very happy out there.

Peppers, eggplants, and leeks!  Oh my!  This view is from inside the greenhouse, looking south towards the house.  

It has been in the 70s the past two days and I am soaking up that sunshine like a sponge.  Oh, it feels so good!  Spring cycling has to be some of the best there is!  After months of riding all bundled up it feels utterly fabulous to ride with bare arms and/or legs.  Matt and I sat in the middle of the yard last night for an hour after work...just basking and chatting.  Then we went over to a friends house and sat in their backyard until dark.  It was gorgeous yesterday.  

The violets are trying to take over the brick garden path.  I happily let them and use one of the other paths for now--or tiptoe carefully around them.

While basking in the yard we talked about how this is such a wonderful portion of the gardening season.  There are a billion things to do and Matt is bursting with energy and enthusiasm to tackle them all!  Come October we can be a little garden weary.  Weeds are still pulled and bounty still harvested, but with a significantly smaller amount of pep.  

Most of the rows are too small to be visible from this distance.  We have spinach is in the low tunnel.  Onions are in the next bed over.  The garlic is coming along (at the far left) after riding the roller coaster of winter weather that we had.

Speaking of weeds, Matt and I have begun the annual task of digging up dandelions.  There are fewer each year...so progress!  I saw our friendly, neighborhood bobtailed squirrel again two weeks ago.  I'm always happy to see she's made it through another winter.  It was her third winter by my count.  Matt is thinning out the strawberry patch which had become quite overgrown in the past couple of years.  It is sorta crazy to think that patch is a decade old now.  

The Strawberry Patch.  Thinned on the left, overgrown on the right.

I placed the stones we painted at the lookout to our garden paths.  I love the splashes of color they add.  We're growing artichokes again this year.  We tried it once before with no success.  They're looking rather promising at the moment.  I didn't realize they were so spiny and sharp.  Of course, I didn't realize eggplants had spines until we started growing them either.  Same for cucumbers.

Artichoke leaves/spines.

There's always so much to learn and appreciate in our garden.  I love that.  We are blessed by this space in more ways than I can count.

A garden gnome that my sister-in-law Bek painted for us.