Thursday, June 10, 2010

The Garden

It's about time I updated you on our garden. My perennial garden, on the side of the house, is in its third year now. And, you know the saying: first year sleep, second year creep, third year leap -- well, it's true and the garden looks just gorgeous, all full and blooming. The lilies are just beginning to bloom:

It's hard to capture the gardens and the house in one photo. It looks much better in person. I decided to plant perennial herbs (like rosemary, sage and thyme) in the front this year since most flowers don't do so well in the hot sun. I also planted zinnias and nasturtiums among the herbs. We'll see how it does.

My pictures are out of order, but look who visits our yard nearly every evening!! The mallards fly in to feed on the dropped birdseed beneath the feeder. I hope they aren't snacking in my vegetable garden because the yellow finches are.

Here is a view of the side of the house before the grass was mowed. You can't see much, but you can see where the garden runs.

We've begun to harvest from our veggie garden: radishes and peas have been picked and lettuce is ready anytime. I also made use of all the beet greens when I thinned the baby beets out. Perfect for salad!

This picture does not look great, but gives you an idea of what is going on in most of the garden now. You can't see the peas, from which I picked a bowl of peas this evening.

Another glimpse of the perennials.

My lavender bush is going great guns and looks lovely! Can't wait to try out a few lavender recipes for the cooking blog this summer.

And now I'm thinking about what I can do next summer (don't tell Michael). We did add a lilac bush and a few hostas in a small garden on the other side of the garage this year. And, I planted a bunch of cosmos, nasturtiums and sunflowers in the peony bed. But I'm thinking bushes and trees and another perennial garden somewhere....

3 comments:

Brenda@CoffeeTeaBooks said...

Beautiful!

We're thinking of planting at least one blueberry bush. We only have a couple of places where they could be planted to get a lot of sun.

We had one in the backyard of a house we rented many years ago. It was so nice to be able to pick blueberries at HOME. :)

Thoughts on Life and Millinery. said...

We should be neighbors! My perenials are amazing me this year and my first time here veggie garden has been great. My peas are not quite ready for harvest though.

willow said...

Lovely to see pictures of your garden, very healthy perennials and not a sign of a slug on your hostas - very impressive. I went to my allotment this afternoon, I am hoping to start picking broad beans and peas in about a week.
On a less successful note my two gooseberry bushes which were covered with fruit were completely bare this afternoon. I don't think it was birds because there were no pecked berries lying on the ground so I can only think that some-one helped themselves to the lot. They weren't even properly ripe yet so I wonder if they will ever be eaten - what a waste.