It has warmed up nicely here--not too warm, but warm enough for the dandelions to pop up everywhere (yeah, that's my back yard above...). While Fernando started mowing the back yard...
I went to check on what plants have been growing in early spring--rhubarb, garlic, and strawberries. I started with my rhubarb, because there were strange stalks I had never seen before growing out of the one large plant!
My rhubarb plant had actually flowered! I cut them off at the stems so I could still harvest the rhubarb. Yum!
I'm always late to the game when it comes to chives. I always forget to use them in salads, burgers, and other dishes, and they end up budding and flowering by the time I finally remember. See?
I just hack them down and wait for them to regrow. Next I checked on the strawberries. Amazing--there were blossoms everywhere! I'm hoping for a huge strawberry harvest this year!
The front yard garden gets an assessment too, since I've got some herbs growing there. I'm not much of a flower gardener; my philosophy is that if I can't kill it and it's halfway pretty, it gets planted in my flower gardens somewhere.
Here is my brick garden, as I call it, with flowers and herbs. That huge bushy thing in the front is oregano, growing like a weed--which is good, in this case!
Another angle.
My English thyme (below, left side) also came in like gangbusters! I love running my hands through the plant, then sniffing my hands. I'm sure people walking and driving by wonder what I'm doing. But I don't care. Next to the thyme below is a green leafy lettuce-looking plant called French sorrel. Yes, the English and French are coexisting nicely. I found a recipe for sorrel soup which I can't wait to try. Also, sorrel has a lemony flavor with a little tartness and it's really good chopped up in a raw garden salad or on top of fish.
English thyme.
My last stop is my front porch garden, with its little blue brunnera (Siberian bugloss) and the multi-colored coral bells (I think I have five varieties in there!). The woodland hydrangea bush anchors this garden (that taller bush in the back), and there's also some astilbe still hidden there, along with a few hosta plants that keep coming back even though I've dug them up a few times. Ha!
It's always nice to make a pre-planting trip around my gardens. It gives me an idea of how things stand and what space will be available for this year's plants. Now it's off to plan my veggie garden!
Back to life,
Christine
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