Lupine & Columbine

We have had such beautiful weather the last few days that it is much more tempting to head to the garden after work than to the computer. However, I have been wanting to post a few photos. We don't grow many flowers because we concentrate on edible landscaping but we do have a few things planted for the hummingbirds and butterflies. We haven't seen any butterflies around the lupine but the hummingbirds have taken to the columbine. Now I'm headed back out to the garden to work in the last bit of daylight. Hope all is growing well wherever you are!

Spring report

Today marked my official end of grad school for now and the beginning of gardening season. The yellow rose was part of the graduation ceremony and seemed just ready for a photo.

It will be nice to have some time to get out into the garden. However, the lows here may be close to freezing tonight so I'm not going to put tomatoes, peppers, melons and squash out yet. I hope things will warm up next week. The front yard has the scent of lilacs while the fragrance of clove currants is wonderful in the back yard. The alpine strawberry plants you see in the picture are doing well. They are a bit tedious to pick but are a wonderful treat. Even though it is still early in the season, we have been able to harvest lovage, baby greens, asparagus and rhubarb. We are even thinking of "harvesting" the lilacs after having seeing a recipe for lilac wine. Sounds good or too weird to try?

Perfect

We spent the afternoon transplanting herbs and flowers

Our meal was asparagus straight from the garden

The lilacs will be in full bloom in a few days

Sunny day with wisps of clouds in blue skys

Temps in the mid 70's

Perfect

Just waiting...

I love growing herbs. They are an easy way to add a lot of flavor to a dish in no time. I always include room for thyme, dill, rosemary, chives and lovage in the garden. However, basil is one of my favorites. This year, I started bush basil plants from Pinetree Garden Seeds for my garden and to give away. The plants will be lovely, delicious and just waiting to be picked as they sit in a pot by the front door of our house. I can wait to toss basil, rosemary and salt with tomatoes fresh from the garden!

The basil plants pictured here are just waiting for warmer weather before they head outside.

Introducing: our first veggie of 2009

A few days ago, we were concerned that our asparagus bed wasn't going to produce at all. Yesterday we were seeing little hints of greenish white poking through the soil and today we have a few lovely spears. The 80 degree days and rain have really helped. Now it will be wet and cold for a few days.

This is our third year with this bed so we will harvest lightly. I ate one raw while I was working in the yard. There is something special about munching veggies while still out in the garden. Although asparagus is great raw, I would also love it if you have any good recipes to share.

Urban Garden Project

The Urban Garden Project is relatively new but I find it to be a great resource. They have had interesting posts and great "how-to" videos for projects. Their goal is to encourage and catalog the creation of 100,000 urban gardens by 2020. If this sounds at all interesting to you, I recommend checking out their blog.

We started gardening in 2002 with the goals of seeing how much of our food needs can be met from our gardens and reducing the amount of grass we grow. It has been a fun project that was greatly helped by turning over our backyard to raised bed gardens. Soon after we moved in to this house, we decided that a small scraggly patch of weeds/lawn directly in front of the house was not worth the effort of trying to grow grass. We dug it up and planted red currants, alpine strawberries and flowers. One of the fun parts of it has been the red currant wine we make each year. This years red currant strawberry wine has been a real treat. Definitely an improvement over lawn which I suspect does not make a good wine.

Next we turned our sights across the sidewalk to our good sized front yard. It would be a bit unusual in our neighborhood to use it all as a garden so we have taken this slowly. At first my husband reluctantly agreed to a few feet of garden next to the front sidewalk. This small garden has taken off and creeps forward a foot or so every year. It has a variety of flowers in addition to ground cherries, lemon balm, sage, thyme and lovage. This summer I'm ready to add some marigolds, dill and rosemary.

I was out working in the front yard gardens today and it is great to see many plants growing already. The loveage and chives are doing well and I harvested some of both that I will make into a salad dressing tonight. My seed starting has gone well too and the marigolds are just waiting for our last frost date before making their appearance out in the gardens.

Writing about this garden brings me back to the Urban Garden Project. They had an interesting post on Front Yard Gardening in case you are thinking of giving up the lawn. If this sounds interesting to you, you are already lawnless or even if you plan to keep your lawn, I would love to read your comments here.