Gardening Update

I'm pretty sure spring is here to stay and we have had a decent amount of rain so far with its coming. We went through a 5 year drought a several years ago here and rain is always a concern and welcome when it comes. 

Here is the tulip tree (I do not know its botanical name). It was in the yard when we moved here. During a bad ice storm a large branch hit it and I had to cut it down by half. As you can see it has recovered quite well over the years and is actually too big now. It will be prettier when the buds actually open all the way.

Here is the plum tree all in bloom. I am hoping to have a bunch of plums to can this year again. We did not get any last year and that has never happened with this tree before so I take it we had a late frost last year. The huge bush beside it is one of a pair of hazelnuts that produces more nuts than we could ever use each year.

Here are the tomato plants. As you can see they are right out of hand. Some of them are a foot tall already. I think if the weather stays nice they are going to get moved out to the greenhouse to help harden them off.

This is the upper garden. It is not a very good picture and there isn't much to look at yet. The bottom has strawberries in it and the top has the raspberries (which you can't really see) and the blueberries (which you also can't really see), there are also a few onions that I couldn't fit in the raised bed and the rosemary plants.



So now for the really good stuff. Here is the raised bed that has the radishes, spinach, lettuce and onions in it. It now also has a bit of thyme that I planted in it and there is a couple of kale plants that were part of the fall garden that are now growing in there.

Here are the garlic chives. I have two patches of them and unfortunately I often forget they are out there and don't use them when I could.

Here is one of the patches of lemon balm. It is in the ground but really hasn't spread terribly badly. I have about 4 patches of lemon balm and though I love the smell, have never found anything useful to use it for. It makes a decent tea but I seldom drink tea unless I am sick and it will help. It can be added to salads but the lemon taste is very strong. You can also make a lemon balm jelly but I have tried several times and have never gotten it to jell yet.

The larger lower garden is finally tilled. I bought a test kit and am in the process of testing it to see where it is deficient. The PH test came out good but I am sure it needs something. As soon as I get that done it will be time to get planting. Maybe I can get some things planted tomorrow. I think it is possible (just poss-ible now) that I have too many seeds but that would be normal for me.