Late Spring brings the next wave of color

The tulips have faded and now it's time for the iris' to take center stage.  The plants are well established now and each of the stems have several sockets blooming at once.  The colors are dazzling!  We're excited to head outside each day to see what else is blooming.

A couple poppies have already bloomed but it's just the beginning; there are many more pods forming and getting ready to burst open.  Yarrow and peonies aren't far behind.

Safari Sunset

Sadly, I cannot recall the name of this lovely iris.

Papaver Somniferum

Praying mantis egg nestled in poppy leaves.

Spent poppy

Tour de France

Boo!  Can't tell you the name of this beauty either.

Gingersnap  (She smells like root beer!)

Rave On (orange iris)
Sadly, I cannot remember the name of the iris in the foreground.

Today I pulled the first four radishes from the garden!  The act of harvesting food from the garden, especially when started from seed, is one of life's simplest pleasures.  The entire process of gardening makes me so happy.  These radishes are about four inches in length, they're crisp and have a pleasant bite to them.

Long Scarlet Radish

Check out our curb appeal!

Our front flower beds are looking lush.  Warm weather and rain will do that.  Yesterday afternoon I ventured outside to take a few photos of the front yard so we can document what is planted where, as well as how the plants are filling in their spaces.  Later in the evening I decided to look at the photos included in the August 2011 post and am amazed at the transformation from just one year ago.  Without realizing it, I snapped photographs of the front yard on March 30, 2011, too.  Yay!

Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

May 14, 2009 - The house is officially ours.

June 19, 2010

November 2, 2010 - We created a flower bed on the north side of the porch which then wrapped
around to the front of the house, connecting with the flower bed in front of the ramp.

April 30, 2011

April 30, 2012 - Many plants are well established now.  A couple dozen
new bulbs were added in the fall ('11) as well a few plants this spring.

July 3, 2009

August 27, 2011

April 30, 2012

August 27, 2011

April 30, 2012

This year's vegetable garden is official.  After a few hours of getting good and grubby, all of the seedlings were transplanted in the garden bed.  Many seeds were directly sown into the soil too.  Right now, it mostly looks like sticks are planted in the garden.  Hopefully, by this time next month, all of the vegetables and flowers will be well on their way and looking as lush as the flower beds in the front yard.

The rain barrels are out and collecting water.  The main barrel is a quarter full just from today's gentle rain.  We hope you're enjoying the spring by getting Earth under your nails and planting many pretty things!


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Arbor Day 2012

The Eastern Redbud we purchased arrived today!  We didn't plan for the tree to be planted on Arbor Day but it's pretty perfect that Platt Hill Nursery's delivery/planting schedule worked out the way it did.

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Berry nice

Bring on the berries!  Last week I busied myself with the task of constructing a raised garden bed in anticipation of the arrival of strawberry plants we ordered last month.  A long narrow bed frame (25'x3.5') was constructed to accommodate twenty-five plants.  Bare roots were shipped so we aren't likely to have strawberries until next summer, but we're excited about the addition of this edible in our garden nonetheless.

The variety of strawberry we ordered is named Sparkle.  It is a June bearing plant that will yield small to medium sized fruit.  Sparkle is touted as an heirloom quality variety with excellent flavor.  It is one of the three recommended varieties of strawberries for the Midwest region in The Backyard Homestead, which, by the way, is an excellent book.

Much consideration was given to the size of the bed frame and its ultimate location in the yard.  A square bed with a mat of strawberry plants?  A wide bed with two or more rows of plants?  We went with a long bed and single row of plants, mainly, because it will be easiest for John to tend to the plants as well as pick berries.  He's not as enthusiastic about the main garden as he is by the selection of berries growing in the yard.

Along with the strawberry plants we also ordered black raspberry bushes.  These were also bare root plants and right now it looks like two sticks are planted in the ground.  Hopefully, next year we will have a selection of red and black raspberries to eat.  We went with a mid-season summer bearing raspberry called Bristol.

While digging holes for the blueberry bushes a couple weeks ago, I noticed a few sleepy white grubs curled up like a 'c'.  Initially I felt bad for disturbing them, and all of the other life forms upset by the shifting soil, but curiosity got the best of me and I wanted to know exactly what they were.  When digging in the Earth as a girl I don't recall ever seeing any such thing in the soil.  Turns out, the milky white grub is that of a beetle.  But in order to properly identify them you need to pick them up and look at their hind end with a magnifying glass.  The hair pattern on their rump, or rasteral pattern, will tell you if it is the larvae of a May/June beetle, Masked Chafer beetle or a Japanese beetle.  I didn't take the time to look at these creatures through a magnifying glass but I did pick up the ones I came across when planting the black raspberries and, while wearing thick work gloves, popped them like a zit between my index finger and thumb.  Yes, I committed grub murder.  Several times, in fact, on Tuesday afternoon.  All that kept running through my mind is how many of those dang Japanese beetles were hanging out on the leaves of the red raspberry bush last summer, chomping and copulating.  There were many more of the white grubs in the soil near the red raspberry bush versus where the blueberry bushes were planted, too.  Maybe this means that in addition to goats, John and I need to raise a couple of pigs or chickens so they can eat the grubs!  Then I won't have to pop them.  Does that description make you squirm, too?

(A) Lumber is cut
(B) Weed block paper laid down
 (C) It starts to rain when only a quarter of the frame is assembled
(D) It's best not to use power tools in the rain

We need more soil.

Full of soil, topped with a layer of cocoa shells, and ready for the strawberries.

A strawberry crown

View of the backyard from the attic.
A thick layer of straw has been placed on top of the weed block paper between the two beds to form a foot path.

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Spring 2012 in full swing

June 6 will mark the third year John and I have called our home Home.  For many reasons spring is always an exciting time, but owning our own home makes this time of year all the more special.  Each fall we plant a variety of bulbs in the front flower beds.  Come springtime we have a more colorful and diverse bed of flowers.  It is wonderful to see what all the new additions look like.  We haven't quite achieved the ever-blooming flower beds that we've imagined for so many years, but we're nearly there.

This year we're able to focus our attention on the backyard, now that major improvements have been completed with the house itself.  The Master Plan is to turn a good portion of the lawn into raised beds where food can be grown.  Last week we planted three blueberry bushes.  Plans for three additional raised beds are in the works and will be built within the next couple weeks.  One bed will be for melons (watermelon and cantaloupe), another for squash (Butternut and pie pumpkins), and a third for strawberries.

The raspberry bush that we planted two years ago is doing great.  It produced a few dozen raspberries last year but now that the bush has quadrupled in size, we hope to have twice as many delicious ruby fruits to nosh on this year.  At the end of this month we will be adding two black raspberry plants to Wright Gardens.  Tasty.

The purple lightning tree we've been longing for will soon be delivered and planted in our yard!  We visited a local nursery earlier this week and selected the tree from six that were available.  It is in a 15 gallon container and roughly 7 feet tall.  I agree with John's assessment, it has good arms.  For those of you wondering what the heck a purple lightning tree looks like, the proper name for the tree is Eastern Redbud.

In the early spring, when the tree flowers, tiny magenta flowers cover the leafless zigzag branches.  The bark is dark brown, almost black, so the end result (to our eyes) looks like purple lightning.  After the tree has finished flowering the tree produces medium sized heart-shaped leaves.

A new gardening helper is our landscaping cart.  John isn't as thrilled about the cart as I am but I'm so happy to have it.  The cart can carry up to 550 pounds and is easily steered around the yard.  The sides of the cart can fold down for easier loading/unloading, and came with a snap-on liner so smaller media such as gravel, soil and mulch can be transported as well.  I even plan to use this cart when there is a large haul of groceries to bring inside, or those times when I bring home two or three 40 pound bags of cat liter.  Wheels!  What a nifty invention.

Chet is curious about the cart.

Finally, we finally have a clothesline!  The posts were permanently put in the ground on Tuesday and, after giving the concrete ample time to set, I installed the cross-bars and strung them with line this afternoon.  I have wanted one of these old school heavy-duty clotheslines for many years and now, just like my Great-Grandma Anna, we do.  Two loads of laundry hung on the line to dry this afternoon with ample room to spare.  Ah, it's the little things in life...

Hello, radish!

A falcon flying over the house

What'cha doing, Mama?

Garlic Row

Red Parrot tulip

Yellow Parrot tulip

Spring has arrived

Spring has arrived a bit early, I might add.  Not that I'm complaining.  The temperatures this past week have been marvelous and I've been busy outside.

The flower beds nearest the house have been cleaned up and dressed with a fresh blanket of pine bark mulch; a cobble stone border has been added to the perimeter of the main flower bed; a broken fence post has been replaced as well as a rotted picket cross beam, and many weeds have been removed from the garden bed... with many more to go.  Tomorrow's plan is to pull the remaining weeds from the garden bed, amend the soil with peat moss, mushroom compost and some fresh top soil, and then sow cool weather loving veggie seeds such as kale, carrots, beets and Brussels sprouts.

About a dozen garlic sprouts are visible above the blanket of leaves and hay!  More sprouts keep appearing daily, and they seem to grow about an inch per day.

So far, I'm enjoying the hell out of my forced sabbatical and an accomplishing a great deal of writing in addition to various tasks around the house.

Happy Spring, chickens!

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Sowing seedlings indoors

It has been a relatively mild winter in the Chicago this year.  It's been cold but not the painful bone-chilling cold that Chicago winters are typically like.  The snow blower was used only twice to clear the driveway and the temperatures have been relatively mild.  This fact was punctuated when we spotted various crocus varieties as well as daffodil greens above the surface of the soil this past weekend.  Seeing signs of life springing from the soil is always exciting.  We're looking forward to seeing the new tulip bulb varieties we planted in the fall flower.

Seeing the crocus and daffodils reminds me that it is nearly time to get seedlings started indoors.  Definitely a project planned for the first weekend in March.

To help plan the layout of our garden, I used a nifty Vegetable Garden Planner tool offered for free by Mother Earth News: http://www.motherearthnews.com/garden-planner/vegetable-garden-planner.aspx  The garden planner helps you determine your first and last frost dates based on your zip code, and you can easily see how many of a particular variety of plant will fit in a row or section in your garden.  Seeds packets include this information, too, but the planner makes it easy to see everything in one place.  Enter the dimensions of your garden bed and then get to planning.  The garden planner even provides some information about companion plants.

Also helpful are the Freeze/Frost Maps provided here by the National Climatic Data Center.

This will be the first year that I'll be planting flowers within the garden bed.  Marigold, Zinnia, Cosmos and Borage.  The flowers are companions of nearby vegetables, and will also attract many beneficial insects and pollinators to the garden.

A list of what will be grown in the Wright Gardens this year are included in the 2012 Garden planning has begun post.  We're happy to share the seeds we have with anyone who is interested.

Oh, and for those of you who wish to save seeds of your own at the end of the season, give these seed packet templates, offered by the Heavy Petal gardening blog, a whirl.

The spring equinox is just one month away!



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