Our Spring Garden

If you are a regular reader of mine, you know that we bought our first house last August. That means that we haven't experienced a Spring season here yet. Although I didn't get any early spring pictures of the garden (our Spring came especially early this year, which landed during tax season), we have been busy.

I would like to preface this post by saying we have no idea what we are doing in the garden. We are sort of just winging it. If we are doing something wrong here, don't just us, we're first-timers!

 

Apparently, we have rhubarb! YAY. It looks like there are about 3 plants, but it is sooo hard to tell one apart from the other. So.... we thought that we might transplant what we thought was one plant away from the others to make more sense of the bed.

Turns out, that wasn't such a good idea. Look at that poor rhubarb plant in the picture below. We transplanted it and walked around for a while, came back, and it was looking pretty sad. Oh well.

We read somewhere that you are supposed to harvest your rhubarb when the leaves are about the size of your hand, just be sure to leave 5 or 6 stalks on each plant. So we harvested some! Doesn't it look beautiful? It turned out to only be about 2 ounces, so I chopped it up and froze it.

We also have PEONIES!!! YAYAYAYA! I saw these babies in full bloom when we first looked at the house last year, and I was so happy to find out that they actually belong to us! I cannot wait until they bloom. More pics to follow on these beauties for sure.

We have a whole bunch of chives. We got them from my Mother-in-law's garden. They seem to be doing pretty well on this sunny spot. 
 

We also seem to have a thicket of this lemon scented herb. Does anyone know what this would be? What is lemon verbena? Maybe that's what it is. Lemon balm? I really have no idea.

This is a close up of the mystery lemon herb...

Our strawberries are off to a good start!

We have a little cherry tree planted. So cute!

We transplanted some wild blackberries from my inlaws backyard. There is some new growth on them, we were a little worried they wouldn't take. 

Here our our raspberries, part 1.  We have two different raspberry patches. In this bed, we have Red Latham raspberries we bought from Gurneys.

In this bed we have 2 Golden Raspberries, 2 Heritage Raspberries, and 2 Carolines. 

Here is our bed for vegetables. We already have our cold weather crops planted. Our bed is a 5x20 bed. We are following Biointensive Growing from the book called "How to Grow more Vegetables" by Jon Jeavons. 

 Here is our little orchard. We have four apple trees. McIntosh, Liberty, Pixie Crunch, and Goldrush apples.They are all dwarf trees except for the tree on the bottom right, that is a semi-dwarf.

The other apple trees appear to be doing well, new growth!!

 We also have a semi-dwarf pear tree which has some new growth on it too!

We also have a pretty little clematis climbing up our lamp post.

Here is a little peak into our garden. Hope you enjoy!

HOLLER!

Catching Up and Making Soup

It may sound a bit dramatic, but now that tax/busy season is OFFICIALLY OVER, I feel as though I have escaped from prison and am finally freeeee. Actually, maybe that's the wrong analogy... I feel more like I've been grounded for months and my mom finally caved and let me watch TV and play with my friends again. 

I got back to quilting the My Sweet Charli quilt (here & here). I was about 2/3 done with the quilting. Last week I finished up the quilting (pics to come soon) and bound the quilt! I spent about 8 hours quilting and binding and it was awesome. I was working on the quilt in our dining room and I had our french doors wide open to the outside, it was like I was Quilting al Fresco. It was awesome. I only snapped a few in-process shots, I will take more photos when it isn't pouring rain outside and I can get some nice outdoor shots.

Last weekend I also threw a baby shower for a friend. I have to say, my absolute favorite thing about entertaining is making floral arrangements. I just love it. This isn't some of my very best work (I was running quite a bit late) but it was still wicked fun. My friend is having a little baby boy, so most of the decorations were blue, but I thought I'd break up the monotony with some white and green arrangements. Still keeping it boy-ish. 
 

I also started cooking again! It has been a WHILE since I cooked real food (like, not buffalo chicken quesadillas). Given that is was rainy and about 50 degrees this weekend, I decided to make some Minestrone Soup. It is pretty much my favorite soup that I've ever  made. Naturally, it's a Martha recipe from her Cooking School book. 
 

I am officially back to blogging, thank God!! I have surely been missing it. Thanks for checking in!

HOLLER!

Happy Easter!!!

Happy Easter! I am in a somewhat miserable mood despite this lovely holiday, and I thought that I would link you to my previous Easter posts on Stuffed Artichokes and Glamorous Easter Eggs.

Hopefully some pictures of cats doing taxes hold you over until I'm back at blogging in May when tax season is OVA.

 

 

HOLLER!