Green Outburst

To compare this spring with other years in my garden you can scroll down to the archives and compare these pictures to the ones from my blogs at the end of April in 2010, 2011 and 2012.  The crabapple has finally leafed out with red leaves, but does not have blossoms yet.  This week the American plum, which we planted last year, leafed out and I am looking forward to the blossoms.

American Plum Trees – still quite small

Last year I planted the middle regents serviceberry on the west side of the house and since then I have been pondering what else to plant.  I decided to get two more of the same and planted one on either side.  The blossoms are just getting ready to open. This was one of those projects where Dan came out and gave me a hand!

I must have planted a lot of different kinds of daffodils last fall.  They just keep coming and I have been enjoying how well they go with the vibrant green grass.  This orange middle stands out.

I could not resist buying this tiny mum this week.  Maybe they were selling them for containers or something, but I am hoping it will settle in and come back next year.

I bought a nine-pack of collards and planted them in the garden.  I have never planted collards before, but we have been buying them to eat recently.  I also got some tomato and pepper transplants in the mail and had to get them in the ground. You can see one of the tomatoes on the other side of the fence.

I just dug holes in the lasagna mulch and planted in the peppers with some good soil.  This pepper is called bull nose and is an heirloom.  My catalog says that Thomas Jefferson grew this variety of pepper at Monticello.  It should be a sweet red pepper.

Here are the beautiful leaves of the potato I am growing in a pot, one week later.  Soon I will start piling up soil so the potatoes will have more room to grow.

The promise of lilacs coming soon.  Charles Joly Lilac.

Chores:  It is that time of year when some attention must be given to the lawn.  Since we are organic we tend to have dandelions in the lawn.  I don’t worry too much in the back yard, but today Dan dug out the dandelions in the front lawn and we filled the holes with soil and grass seed.  We will see how that works…..

Showy Edibles

We finally had rain Wednesday night and that helps the vegetables grow again.  Even though it is still very dry in the yard these plants work hard to produce beautiful fruits.

Eggplant flower.  Dan and I cooked up a big eggplant this week with olive oil, tomatoes and peppers and ate it on rice.

After the rain the tomatoes were starting to crack, so I picked the first yellow tomatoes and they were really sweet and delicious.

Heirloom pepper – ‘Round of Hungary.”  Because of its small size this pepper ripens more quickly than the big bell peppers.  I am growing bell peppers also, but I like these little peppers!

We have a lot of kale in the garden this year. We have eight curly kale plants, like the plant to the left of the path that looks like a big spider or crab.  We also have one dinosaur kale plant, just in front of the curly kale in the picture.  On the right is the bean pole, which should have beans soon, if it doesn’t already.  I noticed that the pole tipped over slightly from the thunderstorm the other night, but I set it up straight again. Behind the kale you might be able to see the tall cucumber vine.  It is right next to the cherry tomato and those vines will be fighting it out over the next months, but I am pretty sure that the tomato will be the last one standing.

Dan is working on increasing his vegetable consumption, so I made him a big salad today with cucumber, tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, and spinach.  (not all from the garden….)

Looks like we have one corn cob coming.  Maybe more in a few weeks….

I love the design, color, texture and smell of these common sage leaves.

Dan and I had the day off so we went and explored at the Morton Arboretum.  We have a Chinquapin Oak in our backyard, so we found a lot of Chinquapin Oaks to see what ours will look like one day.  We also explored this path in the woods around Sterling Pond.