Friday, May 15, 2009

I think Spring is FINALLY here!!

I'm still here! I haven't posted recently as I was sidetracked by life for a little while. We had a house guest for a few days and DH has headed overseas for a time. I've been busy helping him get ready to go and then getting the house ready for company.

MAYBE we're finally done with winter! No snow recently and we have BLOOMS! The tulips survived this year and have been blooming nicely. The phlox does well here too. It bloomed like this last year. I hope these plants survive their upcoming relocation as they are in the future home of a few Jostaberries. This is in front of the porch and while the phlox and tulips are pretty, I think I need something a little larger for this area.


I planted the orange tulips in the fall. These are holding up really well. They have been in bloom for a week now, been blown by the wind and still look great! I found these on clearance at Walmart of all places.


We did have a little garden attack about 10 days ago. I went out to the garden and found this hole.

It's about one square foot and about 5-6 inches deep. The culprit is unknown. What is surprising is that the hole was dug in a nearly empty square. There were a few very very small onions there but that's it. It looks like something was tunneling in, but the hole didn't go anywhere. I had planted several tiny lettuce and spinach starts at the other end of the bed that were untouched. My main suspects are rabbit, small dog, or fox?? I think rabbits have dug a few spots in the backyard this month in some mulch areas, but this didn't look the same. This had a much bigger area dug up than the spots in the back. We may never know what it was. Very minimal damage though.


I hadn't realized how much the peas have grown until I saw the pictures in my last post. I think we'll have blooms soon.


Last weekend, I went to the plant swap for the Rocky Mountain Gardening Forum on GardenWeb. It was nice to meet some of the gardeners I chat with online. They have really helped me a lot learning to plant in my new location. I also brought home some great plants. I was especially happy somebody brought some peppers as mine did not do well at all. The few that germinated, didn't really thrive. I think it was just not warm enough for them in the basement. I got a California Wonder (green) and a Banana Pepper.

I planted out the peppers along with the tomatoes, squash & cukes I had started. It still may be a little chilly for these heat lovers, so they are tucked down into the straw mulch next to a gallon of colored water and are all under cover. I'm hoping I created a suitable microclimate for the little guys. Some of the tomatoes suffered from our winds this week. The black cherry doesn't look too good and I lost a couple smaller ones. Most of them seem in good shape though. The toms are all buried pretty deep to help them have good, deep roots.

The strawberries don't need their cover anymore. They're doing well still.


My potatoes are FINALLY starting to poke up through the straw. I've been peeking under the straw once in a while just to see if any of them were even alive! We're supposed to reach 82 on Monday. I think the plants will enjoy it.

Finally, here is one of the Freecycle rhubarb I got. This is the biggest of the 3 that I planted this spring but at least they are all growing!

I also planted some of the green beans. The beds seem to be pretty warm now and I also used covers to help keep it that way. We have finally hit our average last frost time, so I think it's fairly safe to try now. Next week I'll plant the corn then I'll try to stagger the rest of the bean plantings.

That's it for today's update. Soon, I think there will be much much more to report!

8 comments:

Annie*s Granny said...

I think your spring has finally sprung! That 80 degree weather will really make things jump out of the ground. Those peas look especially good to me, I wish mine looked like that, and your flowers are gorgeous!

Ribbit said...

We have those little holes everywhere!!! They're dug at a slight angle and are perfectly round; they go nowhere like someone tried and gave up and tried again just a bit away and gave up. I wonder if they're just digging for grubs or worms or whatever. Whatever it is never touches the plants as far as I can tell and they haven't gotten in my garden, only in the front pinestraw. My beds are 12 inches; I wonder if whatever it is can't get up that high.

Amy said...

Sunday thru Wed are supposed to be 75-80* Yay!

Ribbit, do you have squirrels? I used to see holes like that under our spruce tree in MT.

We have gophers that make small round holes like that but I don't think they would have made such a mess of the surrounding area and I don't know if they can climb.
The dog most likely to come over is a decrepit beagle who couldn't jump in the bed if he tried but yesterday, another neighbor's Papillon was on the loose, so I could have a new suspect. The digging looked more energetic than a cat digging.
We have fox too but I don't know what a fox would have been after.
It seems odd if a rabbit had gotten in there that they wouldn't have snacked on the lettuce or peas.

Toni said...

Hi Amy!
Greetings from northern Wyoming! Your flowers are so pretty!

We're just getting everything planted here... we're in zone 4. What zone are you in?

Amy said...

I'm in zone 5, at 7000' elevation. Are you still getting snow in WY? I think there was some in MT last week.

Kris said...

The colors of the phlox and the tulips really compliment each other. Really bright and cheerful. I'm so glad your weather has changed tnad that your garden is taking off. Everything looking so healthy! :-D

Ribbit said...

Yes, we have squirrels, and you know, you may be right. The dog has most of the squirrels in the back yard scared for their lives. You never see them, but they're galavanting all over the front yard. Could be, but I still want to catch one of those buggers in the act! :)

Amy said...

I think the squirrels we had in MT learned quickly how fast the dogs could run and that they could run faster. They would taunt my dogs and eat a bite from each apple on the trees.
Now we have rabbits. We have bunnies in the back fence all the time. They know their exits well and I think they too know how fast the dogs are. Sometimes Wilson gets frustrated and barks at them as they run off (after they leave the fence that is).