GARDEN UPDATE - 5/10/11

I HURT!  Today, my mom and I spent three hours weeding and transplanting some ferns and hostas in our north flower bed:

Don't mind the odd bricks and rocks along the edge.  We have some nicer edging rocks in the distance on the sidewalk there.  We just haven't gotten to that yet. The bush in the upper, right corner of this picture has a nesting robin.  My husband, Dan, and I did see two bright, blue eggs in the nest the other day, but the mommy bird didn't leave the nest much at all today.  So we're wondering if they have hatched.  The boys have been very good about not climbing it since we told them about the eggs.

It is amazing how resilient hostas are.  No matter how much you murder them one year, they come back healthier than ever.  This is our north bed against the garage side of the house.  We really don't get out on this side much because there is nothing to do here.  Just gardening.  There are a couple mums in the very far corner of the picture.  There are also some lamb's ear and many others.  I'm not big into keeping plants and flowers unless they are valuable (edible or herbal) in some way.  I don't know if any of these have those properties, so as of right now, I will just keep it up for my mom.  She loves her greenery.  This was for her today.

I also just finished weeding out the mini strawberry patch:

I got these from my sister-in-law, Tina, last year and even though I hate strawberries, I still planted them and despite their transplant and a long, cold winter, they survived quite well.  There is even a blossom!  I'm very excited about these strawberries even with my aversion to them.  I still need to loosen up the soil around them yet.  While weeding, I did find at least two new runners.  It is neat to see that something so fragile under my personal care is flourishing.

In the far NE corner of the backyard, just east of the strawberry patch in the above picture, we have a wild, red raspberry bush:

Also from my SIL, Tina.  SHHHHH, she got it from a park somewhere where they had become very overgrown.  Since it is truly wild then, it does have thorns!  Oh well, it'll keep the kids away from the ripening fruit.  I hope there will be some fruit this year.  When I got the bush, it was just a couple sticks sticking out of a clump of dirt.  It's not doing too bad!   I did weed around it the same day I did the strawberries.


There is another plant/flower bed which I haven't given much time to yet.  (I don't have a full picture of it.)  It's on the east side of the house inside the fence.  I would prefer to put veggies in here but it's already been well planted with that decorative grass (whatever it's called), lemon balm (which smells awesome), snow on the mountains?, and lily of the valley.  The lily of the valley is not obeying the garden boundaries and spilling over into my lawn! 

My mom just moved them there last spring I think.  There may have been some there before, but I don't remember.  But there are a bunch now!  At least some have flowers finally, so I take that as their apology for being so prolific:

The south side:

This is going to be one of my favorite areas.  It actually gets a lot of sun in the day time.  These pics were taken in the evening.  On the left is a lilac bush that I will move after it has bloomed and given me it's reminiscent aromas!  When I was a little girl, the house we lived in had a HUGE lilac bush tree right outside my bedroom window.  I remember waking up in the early summer to it's awesome smell.  The bush in this picture was just one more confirmation we were supposed to buy the house because our bedroom window is right above this bush!  I would love it if some day it was big enough to replace that 9 ft. evergreen on the very edge of the pic.

Anyways, this bed will be full of tomatoes and maybe some green peppers.  We have lots of little tomato plants in our starters.  They are almost ready to transplant!  Woohoo!  I'm very excited about this.  I have only three types this year: beefsteak, Rutgers and cherry.  We'll see how they do.  My husband and I spent a hour weeding this about a week ago.  We really dug it up and got the soil nice and loose.  It's great to dig in now.  But there is still a little more weeding to do....on his side. hehe


And last, but definitely not least:

IMAGINE PICS OF TWO 4X4 RAISED BEDS

Yes, we did just build two 4x4 raised beds according to Mel Bartholomew and his new book The All New Square-foot Gardening book.   However, the pics for it are on a different computer.  I will get them uploaded here and tell you more about them when I can get to the pics.

So that is kind of a rough sketch of some of the gardening happenings at the Hellmich Homestead.

ENJOY!

KUDOS:  Weeding for THREE hours!  And managed to get a sirloin steak, potatoes and scalloped corn for dinner.  Worked five hours for my data-entry job.  Today, was a good day! 

WHAT DID YOU DO TODAY?