Hospitality, Friendship, Encouragement

Saturday, April 18, 2015

The Garden In Spring

Ah, spring is really here!

The daffodils are in bloom, tulips beginning to bloom, I saw some of my peonies beginning to poke their heads up from the ground!

Spring flowering trees are in bloom, though not our Cleveland Pear yet.  The Forsythia is blooming all over Lancaster County.  It's beautiful.

It was such a lovely day yesterday, and today is looking to be even nicer.  I stopped at our local orchard for apples, and ended up with some flowers and some tomatoes and herbs, as well as apples!

 French Lavender

 Italian Flat Leaf Parsley





The kids and I weeded the strawberry beds yesterday.  The soil in these raised beds is so lovely.  Tim had put some wood ash on them in the winter and I worked that in with my hands yesterday.
 This bed has very few strawberry plants in it.  I am going to purchase a few more for this bed.  Last year we had an amazing crop of strawberries.

 I don't know how many of you are able to buy locally grown strawberries verses the grocery store variety.  If you are or if you can go pick your own, you'll be amazed at the difference in the taste!

 Poorly focused photo, but I was happy to see this fruit tree in bloom.

 This is a bridal veil spirea.  It will be glorious for a few weeks in June!

 This is a photo of the lilac we cut back to the ground a few years ago.  It has quite a few flowers buds on it this year and I am very happy about that!

After two long, cold, snowy winters, we are needed to do some maintenance on both the lamppost and the picket fence.

 This lamppost was white when we bought it and we painted it black.  It is a mess this year and will be getting fresh paint.  I'd like to do the light fixtures as well, and they have become dull and faded.

You can see the fence in this video of Kyle driving the mower.  It needs paint, obviously, but there are also a few spots where the wood needs to be replaced.

Glad I am married to a handy man.

So we'll be enjoying our mid 70's nearly 80 degree temperatures today, and working outside while we can.

What are you doing today?


7 comments:

  1. I'm also heading out in just a few minutes to take advantage of the nice weather. I finished getting most of the garden ready yesterday, it still needs to be hoed a couple times before any planting. Now I must continue cutting back the dead perennials so the new growth coming in has room to breath and gather sunlight. That window of time is just TODAY, they are growing so fast.

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  2. happy hands and hearts at work. love it.

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  3. We worked outside together all morning. The front garden is raked out and it appears that everything that should be up is. I pulled the leaves from the rhubarb...also up...and the raised bed...chives up...all is good with the world. I found a great pile of wood ash on the back corner of our property and so am wondering what to do with some of it as my neighbor says that I can have some. I see that you're using some on the strawberries. I have wild strawberries, perhaps they'd like some, but then I also have a blueberry bush and blueberries don't do well. Perhaps I'll just sprinkle it all over the lawn! Feel like a echo here having just come from Brenda's, but do you have a stirrup or hula hoe?

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  4. Time to put the garden in! A wonderful time of year. Don't we love the seasons!

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  5. We spent a lovely afternoon with a dear friend. We watched a movie, and had dinner together. On Thursday, my daughter and I walked the yard, making a list of all the things we need to do, and what we needed to purchase to make it happen. On Friday evening, we stopped at the home improvement store to pick up some of it, but I still have to go to the garden center to get topsoil before some of the young people from church come next Saturday to take care of some of the outdoor chores that are too much for us.

    While at Lowe's Friday night, I also bought a new light fixture for the foyer. I've disliked the one we chose when we built the house for almost all of the ten years we've lived here! My daughter will probably put the new one up for me since she's good at that kind of thing.

    I am so glad that spring is upon us, despite my awful allergies. I noticed that the woods behind the house are just beginning to green up. My tulips are budding - I hope they survive the cold nights we are expecting next week. I just love seeing the flowers starting to bloom, especially after the terrible winter!

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  6. We worked in our yard and flower beds Saturday. It was so refreshing. I love this time of year. I love seeing the amazing colors of the Lords creation. French Lavender.....yay! I love lavender.

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  7. I've worked outside every day this week, even did a bit after church this afternoon. I'm glad your lilac is flowering after being cut back, one of mine has yet to flower that I planted about 4 years ago and it has me stumped as to why. Sometimes root pruning shocks them into flowering and that may be the next step. (sigh)
    You're having some terrific weather, ours has been about 60F each day which is perfect for working outside.
    I'm lucky to have a strawberry farm about 20 minutes south of us and I pick enough to freeze over winter. Definitely nothing like fresh picked strawberries for dessert at night!

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