Hunmming Bird!

My Garden Friends are back. And there was a humming bird this morning! He spent a lot of time hovering around the tree but I don't think he used my feeder yet. We put orange blossom water in with the sugar mixture in the feeder to make it extra tasty. We learned this trick from a couple who we rented a guest house from in Tucson.

I think this is a chickadee; whoever it is looks quite fat. :)
This squirrel has a nut or something.

I think this is a thrush. One was picking at the lavender this morning.

Blog for MariLea!

I set up a new blog for MariLea http://velashouseandyard.blogspot.com/

Raspberry Bushes!

We planted some raspberry bushes today! They are from our friend Darren's Dad. I hope that they make it! They are in the parking strip so hopefully they will take hold before the neighborhood dogs trample them. I can't wait for berries! :) These are some spinach plants I got from the store today.

It was really warm today - in the high 60's and my pink tulips really liked it.

Friends

Lots of visitors this morning. The Robin came and looked for worms in the grass. The chickadees were in the tree but flew away when I got the camera. There were two squirrels digging in the garden. I think they might have been upset about not finding their nuts. Two crows were monitoring things from above and Simba watched from the deck.

Gardening the Second Box

Today we turned under the cover crop on our second garden box. I picked all of the plants - they included grasses, barley, and clover mostly. Then we piled it in the trash can since we don't have a wheel barrow. Mark then dug some holes and we filed it with the plants and covered it up.

We put down the soaker hose. I remembered from last year that it is a real pain to put down the hose once the plants are all growing. We turned on the water and made sure it had good coverage. Then I planted some peas and beans. I got real pea seeds from the store this time instead of planting ones straight from the pod.
We worked around the Kale and the strawberries. The soil looks nice after it is worked.

We found lots of interesting stuff while digging. Here is some kind of Larvae.
There were lots of worms in the dirt. I think worms are good for the soil - if so we are in good shape. :)

Indoor Starts

I started some seeds indoors on Sunday and they are already growing! They jumped up overnight. There are a few that didn't grow. I think my squash seeds are old. I didn't actually have pea seeds I just put a couple of peas in the ground. Maybe I need real seeds? The pumpkin took it's seed out with it. Mark was surprised that it looked just like a seed from a pumpkin. I told him that it is a seed from a pumpkin! :)

Now the strawberrys have green berries! I have no idea when the will turn ripe. I seem to remember having strawberry pie for my Dad's birthday but that's not until June.

These are some pretty purple flowers that are growing with my cover crop in the garden.

Pink Tulips and Strawberry Buds

The Pink tulips are almost blooming now.

Simba got mad when I came in without any cat grass. He looked at me and licked his chops. I went back out and got some nice fresh grass for him to munch on. I have to feed it to him.

The strawberries have some buds! Last year I only had wild strawberries which are tasty but very small. I'm looking forward to some big ones - I hope.

Buds on Pink Bush!

The pink bush near my front door has some buds! They definitely weren't there last week when I pruned it. I can't wait till it blooms. :) I bought some more seeds at the store today to plant indoors.

Last of the red tulips?

We had a lot of wind early in the week and it blew some of the the big tulip leaves off. I was looking at this picture and I noticed a pink tulip that I didn't realize I had. I had to run outside and check - sure enough there is a pink one right by one of the boxes. The tree has some small leaves too now. I trimmed som of the bushes last week too.

Here is the Sumac that mom gave me last year. It's coming back to life.
Here is an update on the crops. Radishes are getting bigger, no carrots yet, I can just see the beets and the chard but you have to look hard. I took off the cloches so they could get some rain. It's supposed to be cold this weekend so I'll be putting them on again before night.

This is an elephant garlic that we got at the farmers' market. The guy told us that it would make a pretty plant and get really big.

New Plants

Yesterday I planted a Peony, Coral Bell, and a Lilac that I got from Mom. Thanks Mom!

I planted carrots today and another row of radishes. I'm trying to stagger the radishes this year so they don't all ripen at the same time like last year.

There is a cute little chickadee that comes by and cheeps in the tree when I am out. He doesn't seem scared of me at all. I tried to get a picture but he's gone by the time I get out the camera.

This is the coral bell.
This is the lilac, it's going to be darker than the other one I have.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! The Squirrel is on our fence post again. I don't know what he is eating, something he dug up from the yard.

Speaking of yard, Dorsey had a new blog: http://www.DorseyYard.blogspot.com/ . I added it to my Friends Links.

A Riot of Red

The yard is just a riot of red right now! The tulips are all open and smiling. The daffodils and hyacinths are starting to fade. It was really nice today; lots of sunshine and warm - maybe in the 70's. Nicest day of the year.

The tree almost has some leaves. They look like they will open any day. The neighbor's tree had leaves already.

The wild strawberry has a bloom, but the other strawberry plants don't have anything yet.

These are the first chard seedlings. You can see the seed still stuck to one of the little guys.

We saw lots of people out and about. It's been awhile since we've seen so many people outside. The good weather gets everybody excited.

Radishes!

The radishes are coming up! I put the cloche over the row but it didn't cover all of them so this will help me see if it is helping them grow or not. Last night it was 33 degrees! Almost freezing. Hopefully they didn't suffer.

The Lilac bush had some buds on it! I can't wait for it to bloom. I trimmed it back last year and it hasn't grown much. I'm afraid I might have trimmed too much. I guess I'll see how much it grows this year.

There is a plant in the garden that I'm not sure what it is...maybe parsley? I lost the tag. It's doing well whatever it is but I'm not sure about eating it.

I've been seeing the squirrel rooting around in the garden. Here he is on the fence post.

More Tulips

A few more tulips have opened up. I've got a combination of small and large red tulips.

It's 38 degrees today and it feels very cold. It's looks like it's going to rain any minute so I took a picture while it was still dry. None of the seeds in the cloches are up yet, I think they are waiting for the ground to warm up a bit more.