They will start growing soon. Warm summer weather is coming, supposedly. Last week we had rain, rain, and more rain, and threatened freezing temperatures overnight to go with it. But the lowest we saw was 36F, barely above freezing but enough above that we didn’t have any plants die from freezing. Drowning, yes. But they didn’t freeze. I guess that is good! At least it didn’t snow.
Sitting in the arbor waiting for the grapes to grow and cover it over with a green canopy. This might take a while. The bird bath has herbs and flowers in pots, surrounding it. The flowers, lavender, haven't popped up yet, so I don't know if these are among the drowned seeds. The jury is out.
One of two strawberry beds at the front of the garden, most of the plants survived the transplanting and have put on a lot of new growth. They are blooming now, and starting to set fruit. We'll have to put floating row covers over the beds once the fruit is starting to get ripe, or the birds and chipmunks will have a field day.
Spinach, squash, marigolds and tomatoes are in the next raised bed.
One of the spinach plants is looking very perky.
All three of the zucchini seeds geminated, at long last. I'm going to let them duke it out for a bit and pick the strongest plant. All three are still babies.
The largest of the two spaghetti squash we planted. It's still pretty wimpy looking, but hasn't had much in the way of sunshine to work with, yet.
Four varieties of tomato plants, with most of them being Roma. I plan on making a lot of sauce in the fall. All the tomato plants are still pretty small, but the main stems are getting thicker and they have a nice dark green color. We are cautiously optimistic about tomato production.
The far end of this raised bed is all pepper plants. The area in front of them is cabbage, cauliflower, brocolli, and onions. None of those are doing well, too much rain and too cool. But the pepper plants, though small, are looking to be in good shape.
We planted six bell pepper plants, six Anaheim pepper plants, and a few different varieties of hotter peppers and medium hot peppers.
A Chocolate Mint growing in a pot, under the bird bath.
Thyme growing in another pot under the bird bath.
Basil and Rosemary sharing a large planter. The basil plants we bought are looking kind of peaked, but the basil seeds are really popping up. Fresh basil is so wonderful.
Other herbs we planted include parsley and oregano, both of which are probably going ot have to be replanted. I am seeing no signs of life in their individual planter pots.
Raspberry plants and grass that needs to be pulled again. We may need to make a deeper bark mulch around the raspberrie bushes, but they're still so short we didn't want to bury them.
Six Red Currant bushes are looking much happier this year. Last year they were small and completely buried in grass. After a full year of unfettered growing, next year they will start producing fruit. They set some small amounts of fruit this year, but it won't be enough to do anything with it. The blueberry bushes are protected by wire rings. They got well and truly munched last year.
There is an apple tree and cherry tree behind the fruit bushes, but they are still small enough to disappear in the picture.
Nasturtium seeds are popping up in a large planter pot. They will spill out of the planter and make a brightly colored carpet. And their blossoms are so nice and peppery to eat in salads.
Three young Josta Berry plants, growing nicely but it will be a few years before they set much fruit. This is the fruit plant we are most excited about having in the garden.
Since only one of our six grape plants shows any signs of life, we planted two Clematis plants on the grape arbor, just to have something green and growing up the sides of the wood lattice.
Some flowers to give the garden color while the vast majority of our plants are tiny spots of green in a sea of dirt.
I think the giant pansies, columbine, and delphinium all need to be replanted. Not seeing any baby plants in those areas, yet.
One of two gooseberry plants, this one is the happiest of the two. It has the longest thorns too. Figures.
Four wild blueberry plants are in a row. They are supposed to grow into a carpet of blueberry bushes, but they go so mistreated last year it may be another year before they recover and start doing what they are supposed to be doing. Being buried in thick grass wasn't healthy for these little guys.
The only melon plant to survive last weeks' rain and cool. We replanted all the other melon seeds on Monday and now we are hoping for a good hot spell. I never thought I'd be hoping for hot weather.
All sixteen corn seeds germinated and now the baby corn plants are almost two inches tall. The dirt settled in this particular raised bed, quite a lot. That's ok. We will be able to add compost next year and enrich the soil.
Three rows of beets are between the corn plants and bean plants, in this raised bed. The beets are just barely visible if you look really closely. Can’t distinguish them from weeds, at this point.
Two varieties of green beans, both of which came up very well.
Peas at the far end of this raised bed, and a hodge podge of things filling the rest of the bed. Radishes, carrots, parsnips, lettuce, beets, spinach, cabbage. Everything except the peas is still tiny.
Last year we planted six Blackberry plants, four of which survived the onslaught of being munched to the ground. They are small so it will be a couple of years before we see any berries off their canes.
One of the four blueberry bushes we planted. These were a huge favorite for the rodent population last year, and we had to protect them this year from ground squirrels who can easily climb through the wire fence.
We may have to start from scratch again with blueberry bushes but we decided to see if these plants can survive their mistreatment.
The only live grape plant. It's so tiny.
A Violet-green Swallow. We have three nestboxes on the garden fence, and this little guy has claimed one of them. They don't have babies yet. The other two nestboxes were claimed by House Wrens, and they are feeding babies. All these birds are bug eaters and can consume a huge amount of them each day. I want one more nestbox to hopefully get a pair of Mountain Bluebirds nesting, as well.
A Clematis bloom growing on the arbor lattice. I would not mind having these plants completely covering the arbor.
Having to be patient while things start growing. I think that is the hardest part of gardening, so far.
