Home Sweet Simple Home

Gardening

Our lettuce in the garden has become a someone's snack. Each day we have a new sprout- it's nibbled to nothing by the next morning. This is our 2nd year attempting to plant lettuce. I'm about to give up.
The cucumbers and onions are all in. We still need to plant potatoes and get some small tomato plants.
Mr. Steady is toying with the idea of making a separate raised bed for the tomatoes. They have done poorly in our main veggie patch the last couple of years.
I've got Morning Glory starts inside- looking nice and healthy. Ready to plant when I finish my weeding and rearranging.
I still need to clean out the front flower garden. I plan on moving everything out and setting it aside for a year [plan is to cover it in a heap of compost and let it sit.] The soil is very poor right there and each year it looks more bedraggled than the year before. The squirrels have dug up and run off with all my tulip bulbs and the beetles finish off my mums there every year. Sometimes I think I keep that garden for their snack so they stay away from the rest of my gardens!
The Lilies of the Valley have outgrown their spot on the north side of the house and continue to creep out into the lawn. Mr. Steady continues to mow them over. The beautiful tiny little bells are just starting to pop up now. They congregate under my kitchen window and its lovely to catch their scent when the breeze stirs them as I do the dishes or cook.
Most of the Lilacs, my Forsythia and Quince bush got burned from the frosts after the warm spell back in early April. They look rather forlorn. Can I trim them or should I wait for fall, I wonder? The Dogwood and Granny Smith Apple tree are bursting with blooms though- a most welcomed sight.
Oh and the dandelions are as hearty as ever. Tough little buggers.
My annual trip to the local nurseries is coming up. Every year Mr. Steady and the kids give me the Saturday morning before Mother's Day (and some $$) to myself to go flower shopping. I usually have a list made by now of plants that I want but not this year. Perhaps I'll just wander thru the rows upon rows of beautiful blooms picking and choosing as the mood strikes.
I have about 3/4 of the gardens weeded now. Found some volunteer sunflowers and replanted them for the kids to watch over. I think I'll need to divide up my Iris in the fall- they are looking cramped. The rhodedendren (sp?) that got whacked by falling ice slabs (and also caught my 200+ lb. nephew's fall) looks quite scraggly with it's catty-wampus (sp) branches but is bursting with pink blooms. I was going to rip it out last fall and never got to it . . . . It still looks goofy- even with the blooms, probably most especially with the blooms.
A reflection of a puttering gardener I suppose. **wink**