Garden Tour

My camera bit the dust on our last homeschool field trip to see the Herring Run over at the Cape Cod Canal, so I had to go out and replace it (which I was not happy about), and I missed out on taking so many cool pictures.  Grr.  It is stuff like this that consistently keeps me over-budget.  Anyway, this time I went for one of those 'tough' cameras that is water and impact resistant.  I figure with all the traveling my little point and shoot does this should help add some years to it's life expectancy.  The bad news is I don't like the camera.  It is very different than what I am used to and I can't seem to photograph how I want to in macro mode, which is what I love when out in the garden.  I think the long term solution is to eventually cave and buy a digital SLR for my fun photog needs, and keep this functional clunker for the trips to the beach, hikes, and general travels with the kids.  Sigh, now that I got that all out lets move on to the actual garden tour.  I have a few more May flowers to throw in from yesterday's post, the first of which are some Lilly of the Valley which perfumed my sleep last night from my nightstand.  I never take advantage of their gorgeous scent as I should, and there is just no excuse for it!

My husband (and the wedding party) wore these tucked in their tuxes at our wedding, the little white bells are so sweet and will forever remind me of that day.

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Two of my rhubarb crowns and plopped in amongst this walkway planting, can you find them?

(Hint:  they are to either side of the orange tulips, one is under a cage.)

The other crowns I received from Johnny's look dead to me, and the roots are rotting underground.  Johnny's had advised me that they are fine, this is normal, that they will take a month or so to break dormancy.  I sure hope they are right cause it doesn't seem 'normal' to me!

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Yesterday I took a huge leap of faith and planted the tomatoes out in tomato alley.  The soil was warm so I decided to go for it....here they are all tucked in under row cover for added night protection:

There are some cocktail straws tucked in along the stems to hopefully keep the cutworms away, and a dusting of Fertrell Feed-N-Grow and Azomite went in beneath them.  I totally forgot the aspirin this year in my haste, stupid, stupid, stupid.   Maybe I will just crush some up and scatter the bits around the whole bed for good measure.  I don't know if it really does anything, but I read long ago about some grower putting an aspirin and a fish head in every tomato planting whole, and swearing by it.  I forgo the fish, but the aspirin is easy enough.  :)

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Here we have peas (2 sections), and fingerling potatoes (under straw) in the tall bed.  In the background is the garlic bed, and a peak at the wildly growing asparagus bed to the left.  Further beyond that just outside the fence is the new blackberry patch, and beyond that (where the dirt piles and toys are if you squint and concentrate on seeing them) is the future home to the pounds of wildflower seed I have sitting in my family room.

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The coldframe is probably just about ready to be moved, everything inside is coming along nicely:

I am not quite sure what happened to the second row of lettuce that I sowed, it is nice and thick in the front, but then just sort of peters out.  Did something eat it?  I don't think it washed away or I would have it growing elsewhere, correct?  Garden mysteries.  There are 2 rows of carrots and lots of weeds tucked in amongst the lettuce....oh, and a big old parsley plant from last year.  The other interesting part about these two rows of lettuce is they were sown on the same day, quite a difference in growth between the two varieties huh?

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Below are the sweet potato slips.  It appears I have lost/am losing one or two, but the rest appear to be growing.  It is quite warm under that black mulch and row cover, sometimes I wonder if it could be too warm......

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In this bed I have some transplanted spinach along with directly sown herbs, carrots, broccoli, and asian greens.  It is the future home to beans or cucurbits...or maybe both.

The bed just to the left in the above photo is my last empty space.  Crazy how fast the new square footage went this Spring, I still have onion and leeks sets to go in the ground as well- and I have no clue where they are going to fit!  Today I plan on transplanting out the remaining peppers inside 'walls o water' (I did 2 yesterday), and sowing my melon and cuke seeds indoors.  I need to hammer out a plan for these melons, cukes, squash, and beans that have yet to be sown.....space is limited.  I think I am going to be planting the leeks and onions in between the peppers, it at least looks good on paper, and that was the plan I came up with this Winter so I should stick with it right??   (The only problem is the winter rye and pea shoots growing in that bed.  The bunnies have helped some with the peas, but the damn rye refuses to die!)

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I threw together some new beds in front of the shed last week for the extra strawberries I had, and my new herbs.  (The strawberries were hung last year, but they didn't do that well so this year I moved them to my half whiskey barrels; the left-overs went in these beds.)

Between the 2 beds there are 3 varieties of mint, oregano, cilantro, pineapple sage, 2 varieties each of rosemary and lavender, garlic chives, and a few basil plants thrown in for good measure.  I finally have 'an herb garden' in addition to the plants tucked in around the kitchen garden.  This is very exciting stuff!  :)

OK, this post has gone on long enough, and my little boy just rode his bike for the first time without training wheels on without me there to witness it..... I am off to be his cheer-leader!