Spring In My Garden
Spring is my favorite season of the year, because Mother Nature is waking up from winter’s deep sleep, bringing out the beauty of every living thing.
I enjoy spending my free time outdoor, working in my vegetable garden, my flower patches, and capturing the beauty of nature in my photos.
The weather was very cooperative for the past few days, so my garden was ready for some TLC (all the gardeners out there know that weeds are the first thing that grows), so today was gardening time for me, and of course a picture session to share with you.
Hardy Viola – these colorful flowers keep on reseeding themselves from year to year. They bloom throughout May and into June. Later on these plants become to leggy, and begin to dry out, thus need to be removed, and replaced with some pretty summer annuals.
Creeping Phlox in full bloom. This is a perennial plant, which blooms in late April and early May. The foliage stays green whole summer, and turns brownish during the winter season.
The sweetly fragrant Lily of the Valley is my favorite flower from childhood. It reminds me of the walks through the woods with my mom and the excitement of creating a nice bouquet for my grandma.
Lily of the Valley grows nicely in partial shade or full sun. Their very dainty paperwhite bells-like flowers tend to hide between the very full foliage, but you can smell their sweetness from a distance.
Last fall I replanted my strawberry plants out of my main garden patch (due to overcrowding), to an outside area next to the garden, and to my surprise, they will be producing fruits this year, as you can see from the abundant flowers they are covered with. My granddaughter loved picking off her own strawberries last year and will be delighted to do the same this year.
Pictured above is Flat Leaf Italian Parsley, which remained in the ground over winter. It really had grown considerably in the past few days, due to the favorable weather conditions we had lately.
I prefer the Flat Leaf Italian Parsley over the Curly Leaf Parsley, due to its much stronger flavor enhancer properties. How about you?
The Sorrel plants also survived the winter, and are ready to be picked off and used in soup, or salad. The leaves resemble spinach but have a quite tart flavor.
This is my Yukon Gold potato plant, which I planted 3 weeks ago. If you wanted to plant some potatoes in your garden and did not have a chance yet, no worries, you still can do it now. Check out my previous post to find out how.
Here you see my FREE plants, once again. To the left are self-seeded tomatoes from last year’s crop, and to the right are potatoes sprouting from my kitchen scrap potato peels. Since potato plants can not be replanted, and these are growing too closely together, I will just have to pull some of them out, to provide adequate room for the remaining ones.
Tomato plants, on the other hand, can be replanted, as soon as they get to be about 4-5 inches tall. I will select the strongest ones, and plant them into their permanent location.
Please share your gardening stories with all of us.