Category Archives: spring

Veggies 8.0

spring, vegetables

Like last year, the cool season crops are going in later than I’d like this season. We had been away on vacation and returned to beautiful Spring weather. After a hectic week catching up on work and a Saturday planting 3 beds for a school veggie garden volunteer project, I was finally able to focus on our own vegetable garden last night. I sketched up a cool season layout with the exciting addition of Edamame!

Then today it rained, and rained, and is still raining. Determined with a mild dash of stubbornness, this gardener put on a rain coat and proceeded to plant. However, when the carrot seeds were sticking to my cold, wet, muddy fingers, I decided to head back indoors for a bit. Instead I thought I’d log what is going in for the cool season crops this year.

2017 Spring Cool Crop Lineup

Planted May 30 despite multiple trips between rain showers to the back garden!

  • Pea Snap Cascadia (Pisum sativum) – supposed to have self-supporting 30″ vine (58 days)
  • Radish Easter Egg Blend (Raphanus sativus) – multiple colors (30 days)
  • Lettuce Gourmet Blend – blend of Prizeleaf, Royal Oak Leaf, Salad Bowl, Red Salad Bowl, and Ashley lettuces (45 days)
  • Carrots Carnival Blend (Daucus carota sativus) – multiple colors of carrots, can also be harvested early for baby carrots (65-75 days)
  • Spinach Baby’s Leaf Hybrid – harvest early for salads or later for cooking (30-40 days)
  • Arugula Rocket Salad Roquette (Eruca sativa) – salad, sandwiches, or pizza (30-45 days)
  • Onion Bunching / Scallion White Lisbon (Allium cepa) – do not thin if narrow scallions desired (60 days)
  • Edamame Butterbean (Glycine max) – edible green soybeans. technically a warm season crop, but our season is so short I’m going to take a chance and sow now. (90 days)

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – May 2016

alley bed, backyard bed, bloom day, fence bed, gate bed, loki bed, perennials, pollinators, spring

A bright and sunny albeit wind-chilled day marks this season’s Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day. Spring has been wonderful on the Lot this year with transplants having made it through the winter, insects already busily buzzing about, and a few new feathered friends visiting the garden.

Currently the South bed is empty of blooms, the tulips having recently passed. The sweet william in the bed has not quite opened yet. Only a bit of carpet phlox is left behind in the Southwest bed. However, on the East side of the Lot, a pretty vignette has brightened up the corner of the house near the gate.

May Flowers in Gate Bed

The labrador violets are still going, now joined by the purple spear-shaped blooms of bugleweed (Ajuga x ‘Chocolate Chip’). The rock foil (Saxifraga) is blooming like the phlox, but this ground-hugging perennial holds its clusters of white flowers above its mat of foliage. Also blooming in the bottom left of the photo is the pasque flower (Anemone patens). Here is a close-up of the flowers.

Pasque Flower

Next are the white blooms of the foam flower, or Tiarella, accompanied by the neighbor’s escapee bluebells.

Blooms in Fence Bed

Further down the fence, the cranesbill has seeded into the backyard from the two plants near the compost bin. Tucked around the Lot everywhere are forget-me-nots.

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Sharing the bed with the new cranesbill plant are the dwarf iris. I did some major shuffling around of this plant last season when I removed some tickseed. I’m glad to see the iris have seemed to adjust well.

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And here’s a busy bee on one of the irises.

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The brunnera is in bloom…

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…as well as the Jack in the Pulpit. Jack invited along some friends this year.

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The strawberries which ducked under the fence from the westside neighbor are blooming.

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And the same bed brings our second year of blooms from the Geum triflorum ‘Prairie Smoke.’

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Last season I divided the solomon’s seal (Polygonatum odoratum Variegatum) in Loki’s bed. The plants seemed to have weathered the winter well and are currently blooming.

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Here is the Mt Airy Fothergilla, looking quite stunning in the late afternoon light.

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The lilac is blooming near the alley bed.

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The Other Half is not the only one who enjoys sticking his nose in the lilacs.

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And the last Bloom Day photo is a patch of violas we are not responsible for planting last season, but have been enjoying nonetheless. The violas are an annual in our Zone 6a garden, but reseed for the following season. I’ve let the generations of the little plants wander about the garden for several years now. The recent cold snaps (we had a frost last night) do not bother them.

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That’s all for the Lot this month. Be sure to visit May Dreams Gardens for links to many other May blooms.