Friday, March 19, 2010

Hello, Neighbor!

John and I couldn't be more thrilled with the arrival of spring!  For the past couple weeks we have watched slender green fingers push their way through the surface of the soil in the flower bed nearest the driveway and along the front of the house.  Many of the flowers that are growing have been planted by a previous home owner and we are excited to see what blooms.  As for the iris', a smattering of tulip bulbs and a trillium we did plant in the beds nearest the house, we do see evidence of newly awakened life there, too.  Ah, the wonderful color of green is slowly returning to the Midwest!

Late last summer you may recall that we transplanted several thousand day lily tubers along the fence that runs the length of the front yard as well as a nice row alongside the ramp.  There are signs of growth here too and we are looking forward to seeing last seasons hard work in full bloom.  Hopefully, the peony bush we transplanted has survived and will show itself soon.

We have garlic!  Although establishing a vegetable garden last year was too much to take on, I wasn't going to pass on planting garlic.  Heck, no!  A small bed was made, supplimented with mushroom compost and a few handfuls of leaves, and in went the garlic cloves.  Four different varieties of garlic to be exact and six cloves of each variety was planted in neat rows.  This morning, before heading off to work, I decided to inspect the garlic bed to see if sprouts were peeking out of the thick blanket of leaf cover, and there are!  Twelve garlic sprouts can easily be seen so far.  In my experience with growing garlic, there has never been a clove that hasn't sprouted so I expect that we will have a full harvest of 24 bulbs of garlic come mid-July. 

Our yard is a blank palette just waiting for John and I to flex our green thumbs.  We plan to plant an Eastern Redbud tree in the front yard this year, establish a vegetable and herb garden in the back yard, as well as plant a number of different flowers that will attract butterflies, bees, hummingbirds and bats to our yard.  As our flowers bloom and work progresses, we will post photos here for you to enjoy.  It'll be fun for us to see a timeline of how our yard changes, too.

Less grass!  More food.

Lisa & John

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