Dampened Spirits

All my careful planning, sketches, counting, and calender work has been washed away with the heavy Spring rains. We certainly need the rains after such a dry, dry winter... but it is the reason I didn't get out and get my garden together sooner. My mid-April planting plans were tossed aside with every dry spell in favor of doing more pressing yard clean up. But... I have finally managed to get my seeds planted. At least, some of them.


The Tomato Patch.
From left to right... Heirloom Cherokee Purple, Heirloom Black Krim, Mountain Pride and Roma.
The pile of jugs on the left is my clever way of watering these puppies. Since the hose doesn't reach all the way to the back of the property, I have punched a hole in the bottom of each jug. On the few non-rainy days we've had, I fill the jugs with water and place one by each plant. In this way I can keep track of exactly how much water each plant gets, and I don't have to extend the hose more than 150 feet.


Here is the main garden plot. The back "wall" is made from last year's tomato cages stretched out in a zig-zag pattern. I split some of my cucumber plants and a couple of the split-ees didn't survive, so I may have to add more plants later. They cuces haven't done much growing since their planting, but I recall last year they really didn't move much until July sometime. The far end of the "wall" is a tripod made from garden stakes to house the sugarsnap pea plant. That little vine is growing just fine, and partially attacking the end of the cage wall.
In front of my vine wall I have planted seeds of beets, green onions, and carrots. I divided the mini-patches with rows of rocks. This is the first time I've tried seeds directly in the garden.

The front bed (not pictured) contains some type of summer squash. My neighbor had an extra and I had space, so I guess I'll find out what type of thing I'm growing in a month or two. I gave it half the bed, since my summer squash plant last year took up at least that much space. The rest of that bed is vacant at the moment... if we don't visit a garden store soon I may just try more seeds over there.


Mr. Cherry Tomato
Located in the fire pit. This puppy is a fast growing piece of work (all that heat from the wall behind it probably helps)


Mr. Grape Tomato Plant (and Turtle Statue)
I've never been fond of too many "cute" things in yards (some people go crazy with all those gnomes!) but our old roommates had a wonderful collection of wind chimes and bird feeders, and I think those types of things are fun. We have a large bell in the back yard that has a lovely low tone in the wind, and I love my brass wire sculptures of the dragonfly and fireflies that glow in the dark. That being said... I bought the turtle because he's totally cute. ;)
Grape Tomatoe is located just off my deck, on the bottom step of the stairs going up to the yard. The plan had been to rip these stairs out and replace them with a set that wandered up the hill as opposed to slicing straing up to the yard along the low wall above the fire pit (someone will slip and take a header on those steps one of these days, I just know it!) But... this plan has been put off. Again. So I block the stairs with Grape Tomato to keep Gayle off of them.



The Herb Wall.
I cannot convince Dan that the herbs should be planted in the totally empty patch of dirt directly behind this wall, so I planted my herbs in the pots and set them on top of the wall instead. Thyme, garlic chives, oregano, chives, rosemary, marjoram, thyme. No sage, it tastes like pinesol to me.



The Railing.
Dan bought me a couple of dragonfly pots and hangers for the deck railing.
Are you detecting a dragonfly theme yet?
Here is where the Dill and Italian Flatleaf Parsley play host to a massive garden spider who refuses to move his web no matter how many times I knock it down to pick herbs. Apparently he likes the flowy dill. Grrr.....

As to the beds, everything is incredibly more lush than it was last year. I'm not sure if it's the compost we put down, or just that we didn't hold back as many plants as the previous owners might have (I have a feeling they tried to eradicate the yard of the prolific Bishop's Weed, which I happen to like and have let go wild as ground cover) I pulled a ton of daylilies out and gave them to my mom, the ones that are left are easily twice their original size. The greenery in the bulb bed is massive, the iris' have already bloomed and we have quite a few tiger lilies with big bulbs getting ready. I put new birdseed in the birdfeeding station - it is the kind that doesn't produce weeds when it spills. So far I haven't seen much activity on those (even the squirrels seem to ignore it) I finally figured out that the lone sprig I found on the side of the yard is actually lavender, so I've cleared some ground cover from it and gave it a nice pile of compost. I'd like to see that one come back to it's full glory. In the week of sunshine we recently had, Dan managed to get out and trim up the big Azalea (sp?) bushes just above the deck. They look a bit formal, but are much nicer as smaller guys than the wall o' green we had earlier. We also have some really cool purple flowers pop up behind the bird feeders... I haven't seen them before so I'll be getting out to shoot them (hopefully they'll survive our latest rains!)

I probably won't be out in the garden much until the rains let up... I'll just be checking for seedling sprouts.