STILL not QUITE over the hump!

but getting there! the peeking ups are seriously UP now, and budding. SO exciting.
i'm still not sure what i planted or where.

the tulips are obvious! i am super excited to see them bloom!

one of the narcissus did bloom, and there are several more budded. 

the petals have little green details on them. they are SO sweet petit!

the meleagris is up. SO cute. my mom gave me one that was already blooming so i put it in the ground near the others. i hope they will inspire the babies to grow up big and strong & multiply! 

there is lot's of fun stuff going on out there, it's exciting to see what has survived & what is flourishing, some things are really starting to get established & are growing like gangbusters! the monkey flower for instance, it died down to the ground and i wasn't sure what would happen with it, but, it looks like it reseeded itself and there are a bunch of little monkey flower buds all around where the one was last year. SO FUN!!!

last week i lost my mind a little (like i always do) and bought:

2 different kinds of cat mint, and one of every other kind of mint they had to plant in a spot where some of the neighborhood cats like to poo. i am hoping that this will discourage them.

3 hollyhocks that i planted in front of the front windows. i hope that they grow tall enough that we will see the flowers from inside!

some creeper guys to flow down the big terra cotta chimney liners.

2 lavenders that i am planing to put in the 2 planters on either side of our little porch.

and a hellebore!!! i have really been wanting one of these. they like the shade so it will go on the shady side of the house & they are early spring bloomers, so they are something nice & hopeful when you really need it!

peeking up!

there have been some smatterings of snow and cold over the course or our NW winter this year, and there may have been some garden casualties. :( we'll see.

i am very excited that my bulbs are starting to poke their little green bits up out of the ground. i don't really remember anymore what i planted where so it is going to be really exciting to see what pops up!

i feel like we are nearing the point of being over the hump and on towards spring. fun and exciting, it's time to start planning this years garden!

maintenance

my seeds sprouted immediately! i planted brocoli raab, arugula & tuscan kale. the little sprouties are growing bit by bit. i am going to plant the second bed with a ground cover or crimson clover. i need to do that today, because it's getting late.

i am finishing with turning the soil along the side walk and i want to finish up that today too, i have a ton of blue hispanica that i have dug up from all over the yard & some muscari that my mom gave me and they need to go somewhere. i might get some lavender to put in too. it's drought tolerant and i LOVE it.

pickle power!

bread & butter pickles - they turned out ok. i guess i'm just not a bread & butter pickle girl. i haven't tried one on a hamburger yet though, i suspect that might be pretty awesome!

zucchini pickles - these were kick ASS! they were refrigerator pickles, so we had to eat 'em up before their 3-ish weeks were up. luckily that wasn't a problem!

pickled blueberries - yum. a revelation! they were particularly good with ham.

green tomato relish - hmmm... well we haven't really tried it yet. i guess i should finally crack one open and see if it's still edible. :(

pickled red onions - OMG! i am completely addicted to these!! i make tham regularly now, good on tacos, sammiches, or alongside just about anything

olive oil pickles - these were AMAZING! crunchy & vinegarly, just like pickles should be. i am sad thay are all eaten up.

pickled prunes - yum yum yum. i need to make some more of these!

bulbs

i have been excited (& intimidated for some reason) to explore the world of bulbs! tulips! dahlias! i was never really interested in hyacinths or daffodils (until i saw THESE), but i did discover some other little things i had never heard of that caught my eye!.

back when it was tulip season i got all jazzed up and started a wish list here. over the past few weeks i realized that i was actually time to order some & get them in the ground! so i filled up my shopping cart & was a little shocked all the things i wanted added up to about $100 & where were they all going to to go!?! and then i got distracted.

last week i decided i needed to look again. it's REALLY time now! but now everything on the website is listed as "call for availability". hmpf! i didn't really want to deal with calling. also i didn't want to hear that one (or any) of the items on my list was sold out & i was out of luck.

so i decided that i would just go to the farmers market and buy some bulbs from the cute little old flower guy with the funny accent. i ended up with a variety pack of tulips, a pack of reddish orange tulips, some white daffys with orange centers (kind of like the professor einstein ones i had my eye on), an interesting looking allium and he had some of the melegris!!!

everyone is in the ground now & i am exited to see what comes up! i still have a bucket full of bulbs in dirt that i dug up for various places around the yard from previous owners. i will have to figure out where they are going to go. they are mostly these and these, and a few of these from my mom.

the only thing i am sad not to have is some of these, i don't know what it is about them, they aren't that different from the hispanica blue's, but there is just something about them that feels elegant & fancy.

a sunny day to play in the garden!

i was too busy to snap any pics but yesterday i:

moved the feverfew from it's spot in the herb garden to one of the beds in the front yard (it had outgrown it's space).

dug up one of the 3 lavenders i planted outside my studio door (the first thing i planted in our yard 2 summers ago!) because they were really crowding each other and i put it in the ground outside the fence under the mailbox.

i scattered some love in a mist and some straw flowers (the straw flowers are staring to go to seed!) seeds in the hole left by the lavender, the other 2 lavenders should fill in eventually & i think the flowers will mix in nicely until then.

i pulled the 2 snow in summer plants out of the little round terra cotta tubes & moved them to the bigger rectangular chimney liners so that they have more room to spill.

when i pulled out the lavender i was able to retrieve the rest of the pebble collection i had carefully filled the space with when the lavenders were small, so those are now filling in the curvy edge of the herb bed.

i collected some hollyhock seeds from the plants outside of theo & threw some in a pot and some in the ground, so we'll see if they do anything.

all in all a very satisfying day! today its raining so i am glad used the sunny saturday to play.

all the veggies are on their way out, and it's getting a little on the late side for winter crops, so they need to come out of the ground soon! maybe today if it stops raining.

it's time for broccoli raab & kale!

and then the rains came...

no indian summer for us here in the great pnw! we are launching straight into a long wet "wall" "finter"? what should we call it?

we had a freak gorgeous day yesterday and i spent the majority of it out in the garden cleaning up and moving some things around, mulching and pruning. i know it was a good day when i go to take a shower and a river of mud flows down toward the drain!

i think that the garden is liking the loooooooong wet drink of water. the ground is soaked & everything is GREEN.

i harvested all the tomatoes, some ripe, mostly green from the purple calabash and pulled it out. i harvested one last handfull of beans and pulled out all but 2 of the green beans. we are still rolling in the cucumbers! the zukes are still producing! i am fixing to start sowing some winter veggies: brocoli raab, kale, maybe radishes...

if there were 48 hours in the day i would like to make some pickled blueberries (i bought too many at the farmer's market last week, green tomato relish, and another batch of cucumber pickles!

pickles!

we have had a bumper crop of cucumbers! their plenty has well made up for their tardiness.

when we lived in philly and shopped at our local co-op they always carried kirby-style pickling cucumbers, and they became our regular cucumbers. i had never had these kind of cucumbers before . i was accustomed to the typical variety you find at the grocery store, which can be good, but this other kind of cucumber is delicious with the skin on, they can be sweet, the are crunchy, and they are wonderful! here in seattle these cucumbers are hard to find. so i was excited to grow our favorites so we could enjoy them again.

they were slow starters, but now they have completely taken over their little corner of the garden and are starting to take over the path. at first we were trying to keep up by eating them with lunch and dinner, but then i started stock piling so that i could make some actual pickles. we settled on a bread and butter pickle recipe and made a batch last weekend. we won't know how they turned out for 2 more weeks. i am EXCITED!


tomato update: there are many tomatoes on the vine still. so far we have gotten two truly red edible tomatoes. there are maybe a dozen or so that are ripening now and then there are MANY green ones. i pruned like crazy the other day in the hopes that the ones that are red will actually ripen, and i pruned a bunch of green tomatoes that will become green tomato relish this weekend!

i have even harvested a few fish peppers and there are a few more on the vine! i haven't tried them yet, i am thinking of

the beans are pretty much all done, the zucchinis are slowing down (i am going to make some zucchini refrigerator pickles this weekend too!), and the chard is hanging in there. the new batch of lettuce is doing well, we have had a couple salads from it already. it's almost time to plant some fall crops: brocoli raab, kale, another batch of chard perhaps, and some arugula again!

today is the first day in a long time that i have had any time to send in the garden. there's not much going on out there other than maintenance right now. pruning and cleaning up, putting a few things in the ground, weeding, etc... SO i'm going to get out there!!!