Garden update (with tour!)

Things looked pretty rough in the last photo. The walls are all finished. We've since planted potatoes in the lower bed and moved some hastas from the back yard up to the shade of the maple tree.

A view of the boxes from the bottom. The foreground is just weeds. But, behind that is tons and tons of garlic! The little yellow flowers are our broccoli. It grew all winter under frost covers and we started harvesting in the spring. We let it go to seed when we were hit with a heat wave. We haven't pulled them because there aren't a lot of blooms in the neighborhood yet and the mason bees and bumble bees have been visiting them constantly.

And, a view of the garden from the top. We planted beets (for beet greens) and spinach in the two nearest boxes on the side that's shaded much of the day by the maple tree. The second box also has peas. Many, many peas.

Back fence isn't up yet. But, we do have the rest of the run planted. We put in low bush blueberries last year. This year we added three high bush blueberries (seen in the foreground). They'll reach about 4'-5' tall and will provide a bit of a privacy screen for the picnic table.

In our ongoing war with grass, we ran a planting area along the whole front fence of the south garden. We're planting perennials with a goal of having them fill in the area in 3-5 years. In the mean time, Dawn is going to interplant annuals, mostly grown from seed. Some of the flowers we're planting reseed themselves so we won't be mulching this area.

Here's the rest of the new (and old) planting area next to the driveway. You can see the new rhubarb plants we put in. I can't wait for those! I hope to keep my granny well-stocked with rhubarb... especially since her strawberry-rhubarb bars are out of this world!

One of the plants we're most excited about in the new planting area. This is a dianthus and the variety is called 'Spooky'. The flowers are a wispy, halloweeny kind of thing.

The herb garden. There's not a ton going on there. We let more of the asparagus go than we needed to but we wanted to make sure we have really strong plants come next year. They're only two years old now so we should really be able to enjoy them next year.

We've changed things up a bit in front of the walkway. We put in three new ornamental grasses on the corner and the other perennials are starting to come in nicely. Another year or two and it should come together.

Quick shot of the rest of the planting area in front of the house. Again, second season for everything and you can see that it's starting to fill in a bit.

One of our early bloomers, cerastium, is doing very well in the front flower bed.

The north garden. That's not tall grass along the side. I swear! It's chives and sage

We planted it last year to discourage the deer. Those are both strong-smelling plants that the deer don't like. It masks the yummy food in the garden so they're not tempted to jump in. At least, that's the theory. It must be working because none have tried it yet! Well, that and the fact that the hoops my awesome sister made for us are probably quite the deterrent too.

The chives are just starting to flower. They should open up next week. I hear you can cut the flowers and use them just like a really mild onion or chive. Maybe to add some color and flavor to a nice bowl of soup. Of course, the bees also love them so I'm going to leave most of the flowers for them. I'm not sure what honey made with chive pollen tastes like....

The north garden, all ready to be filled with peppers and melons as soon as it warms up.

Oh yeah. More garlic. I'm sure we planted over 200 bulbs... before we found out Dawn shouldn't ever eat garlic again. So, our friends are going to benefit mightily. (Tulips in the front of the box too but they've dropped their petals already)