Tulips

When we moved into the house there was a large raised bed in the front that was full of red tulips.  I removed the bed and the tulips, but kept a few bulbs and replanted them.  They look very nice now.

Brown Marmorated Stink Bug

I've been hearing about this nasty guy for about a year, and looking at the stink bugs that I occasionally find.  Today I found one.  He's now in the freezer.  Now that I know we have them, I'll keep watching.  Reports are that they are very destructive.

More Projects

Yesterday was a nice day, so we did a few of our projects.  The first was to put up lattice in the corner of the deck where we put our outdoor table.  I'll put pots of plants along the benches.

 David redid some of the edging in the bed where the berries are planted along the side.

And I planted the asparagus and put down IRT plastic in the strawberry bed. 

With the lattice up in the corner we decided that a better place for the hanging bird feeder would be under the trellis along the back.  It took the birds about two minutes to find it.  The pine siskins love it.

The squirrel has made several attempts to figure out how to get to it.  I'm not sure why he's bothering, because it contains the same seed as the house feeder, which is mostly for him, and the stuff on the ground under the other feeder.

Epimedium grand

'Red Queen'

More Planting

With another decent day I finished most of my planting.  I put in a bed of German Butterball potatoes and sowed two short rows each of beets and carrots.  I also threw in a row of Lemon Gem marigolds.  I added a row of Bright Lights chard and Nero di Toscano kale in the onion bed. I planted the artichokes between the fruit trees and threw some purple poppy seeds and magenta columbine seeds around them.  I got both of those from Barb Crothers.  I hope they come up.  I noticed that the squirrel has already been digging in the nice soft dirt.

I've dug up both red-twig and yellow-twig dogwoods at the edge of the deck.  I have six blueberry plants to replace them.

Onions

Yesterday I went to 13th Street Nursery and bought lots of vegetable plants and starts.  I bought several kinds of onions, four artichokes, potatoes, and asparagus.  I also bought six more blueberry plants.

The showers eased in the afternoon, so I planted the onions.  After adding fertilizer, I planted three rows of leeks, one row of shallots, two rows of red onions, and four rows of yellow 'Storage' onions.  I also sowed two rows of spinach.

Spring!

We're back from our cruise and spring has arrived in our absence.  The fruit trees, except the pears, are blooming.  The pears are just leafing out.  Here's the nectarine.

The apple trees are loaded with flowers.

The blueberries are all showing signs of blooming, but the Earliblue has flowers.

The celandine poppy is blooming, as are the red-flowering currants.

 

There are a lot of weeds, but yesterday was a nice enough day that we were able to get out and attack them.