My energy's back, with pics to prove it!

The weekend started off with hosting a spur of the moment sleepover for Loch and his friend from school.  I wish I could they could donate some of their energy to us grownups, I was exhausted just watching them!

After dinner we lit a fire for roasting marshmallows.  Finn and his buddy T were included too, of course!

Just what they need, sugar...

We spent most of the evening watching them run around with swords, water guns, jumping off the fort with boxing gloves on and other dangerous boy activities.  As much as we really needed cocktails by then, we held off in case we needed to make a trip to the E.R.!

Hubby then set up the tent for them... this didn't last long however, they were telling scary stories and ended up inside.

Saturday morning we took a trip out to my favorite nursery way out in the sticks, but the drive is so worth it, they have thousands of native plants and hard to find stuff.  Both the kids were a little whiny from their late night, but they made it through.

Finn holding one of my new hollyhocks!

  

Hollyhocks are something I've always wanted to grow, but never wanted to wait, kind of like asparagus & rhubarb LOL - but I saw these and had to have them.

Loch's looking a little sleepover-hungover this morning, don't you think?

Oh, and I hired a gardener...

Ha ha, just kidding!  That's hubby finally getting after the hugely overgrown prostrate rosemary hedge.  Loads of dead stuff was cut away from underneath, I can't wait to burn it in the fire pit, it always smells so good.  I was also able to plant all 120 little flowers & herbs that had been started in flats outdoors, not sure if they will all make it through the dog/kid traffic, that's why I started so many.

The harvest this weekend was more lettuces - 

and TWO little spears of Piricicaba broccoli!  We may not get any more than this since it's getting ready to bolt in the heat already.  Broccoli does much better in the fall here than spring it seems.

While the kids ate pizza (store bought, yuk!) for sleepover night, we had salad!

I never get sick of salad the way I do squash, zucchini and the like.  I could eat salad with every meal and be happy.

This morning I looked for a tank top to garden in and maybe get a little sun to no avail, apparently I ruined them all last year, so I had to get a little redneck again - yep I just cut the sleeves off a t-shirt!  I've never done this before but it felt kind of liberating!

Brace yourself for what's coming next...I'm a murderer!

Above are my blackberries, below are my raspberries.  They are on either side of my split-rail fence garden.

And now they are....GONE!

I know this might seem crazy to some of you, but here's the deal... we have got to start getting away from so much high maintenance looking things and start integrating a lot more "pretty" into the garden since we are hoping to sell in a few years when the market bounces (hopefully) back.  In the unfortunate event that we would have to do a military transfer, not be able to sell and have to rent our place out, can you imagine what would happen if things like raspberry canes were left to the charge of the average non-gardener?  I shudder to think what the yard and garden would look like.  So on each side will now be my hollyhocks!  Hubby also built a few trellises for me today and I transplanted some of my pot-bound clematis to climb on the teepees we placed there.  I'm hoping it will look a little more like a cottage garden and a little less like a "garden at all costs" garden LOL, you probably know what I mean, space is a premium - you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes!

Please forgive me for ripping out perfectly good berries - it's for my future sanity!


All that's left tonight is to make dinner, 3 more loads of laundry, get the kids into bed and collapse.  I hate admitting that I'm addicted to a tv show, but I am - and will be watching Army Wives tonight after everything settles down, I can't wait! Hope you all had productive weekends or at least the sun is shining and finally warming up your northern gardens - you all know who you are :)

Spring Garden Vegetables

Just beautiful weather today!  Highs only in the low 70's and thanks to yesterday's storms, I don't have to water!  This is what's going on this morning in the vegetable garden...

Artichoke

Garlic

Brandywine Tomatoes

Peppers have put on a huge amount of growth since they were planted last week.

Tomatoes have tripled in size in the past 12 days 

The culvert planted potatoes are all up and have been mulched once already, plain old Red Pontiac from the feed store this year.

Blackberry flowers

 Bronze Mignonette lettuce

Mizuna greens are bolting already!

Tango or Salad Bowl lettuce, can't remember...

The insects are have arrived on the broccoli

Piricicaba Broccoli is starting to have shoots, peas in the background

The 1st pea blossom!  Oregon Sugar Pod II

Peas & Carrots

I planted the kids' rooftop garden early enough this year (I think!) to get some growth before it gets too hot.  Climbing beans will hopefully grow up over the fort and petunias will spill over the side.  That's the plan, anyways...

Cascade Hops for the biergarten :)

A couple of you have inquired about how we grow our hops.  Below is a trellis hubby constructed - we originally grew fast growing Five-Leaf Akebia on it to block the sun from our outdoor table, but quickly realized it was perfect for growing hops!  It's pretty darn high at about 15 feet, but hops can grow up to 30 if they have enough trellising LOL.  We find that they reach the top and spill over to come back down creating a dense wall of foliage and hop cones that smell great. 

 This is also home to "Mr. Mockers" our resident chatty evildoer mockingbird.  Some of you might remember my yearly adventures with him, having to bring an umbrella with me into the garden to block my head from his divebombing and other nonsense.  Since I have a penchant for neurotic Aussies and Border Collies, his antics fit right in around here and I look forward to him every year.  I'm not sure where the nest is this year, but he struts his stuff on top of the arbor since he can see us coming out the back door from here.  He then parades around the edges of the raised beds and split rail fence about 3 feet from me squawking at me the whole time!  I'll try and get a pic of him soon, he's awesome :)

 I still have lots of stuff yet to plant, but these are mostly perennials and herbs with a few trailers to put in randomly.

My garden might be a bit of a challenge this year - I am growing much more than I have before!  In years past if the peas or something weren't ready, I would actually pull them up (organized OCD that I am) so I could replant the beds.  This year has me tucking in plants all over the place, hence the carrots next to the peas and a few other random things.  My pepper plants are all over the place, one here, one over there...    I am looking forward to it however, since my favorite gardens to look at are the French Potager gardens where so many things are intermingled.  It goes against my nature, but it's what I really want to become good at, plus, no more ripping out perfectly good veggies just to maintain "good order and discipline" LOL!  I still have all my direct seeded stuff to go in, I'll be very busy this weekend.

Two last photos:

This is an overview of the gardens from on top of the kids' fort, the main fenced in garden in the first and the second photo is the "side garden" which we seem to add to every year out of necessity.  I'm also noticing that I may be getting a bit old to be climbing up here....  :)  Also note that I haven't planted my bush beans, edamame or cukes yet and have no earthly idea where the squashes will go... it will be a fun ride for sure!

The first hummingbird is here!

This photo is terrible, shot on my cell phone, but look just above where I wrote "bird!" - that's the first hummingbird sighted this year!

If you are already in the know, this is a big deal as we are welcoming back old friends.  If you are new to hummingbirds, here's the scoop:  they return to the same yards/area year after year and fly thousands of miles just to be here in my yard so it always makes me smile when they arrive.  What is interesting is that they always return to their same spot, they don't always use the same route to get there.  We have no hummingbird feeders, just lots of plants that they love.  On any given morning, I have 7-10 hummingbirds outside the back deck.  Visit Hummingbirds.net to find out all kinds of cool stuff and what to plant so you never need a feeder, as well as migration dates and varieties.

Tomorrow will be the day for tomato planting - these are way too big to be in here anymore, and the sacrificial Brandywine out in the garden is doing great.

Yesterday I finally tackled "the stack" - I feel so much better now and the pile is gone!

Another sign - the azaleas are almost there.... I just checked my garden calendar from last year and the azaleas opened up on April 18th last year.