Girls weekend ends up at the nursery

The first girls weekend of the summer came in April and of course it wouldn't be a good girls weekend we didn't end up at the nursery. With the possibility of frost in our future, we were very careful with what we chose.

The haul

We came home with another set of purple chives for Pooka and K to munch on. These will have the pretty purple flowers we can make chive vinegar from. We also bought a new strawberry plant (ours didn't fair so well over the winter) and a purple set of flowers called campanula.

Strawberries

The strawberry went into a pot in the back yard. It seems none of our strawberries from last year survived so it was nice to get a new set. This is one of a few we will be planting this year.

Pooka's picture of her flower

Pooka actually took this is the purple flower campanula. She had to walk in her flower bed and said "Well, I hope nothing was planted here." Pooka loved the color and the shape of it and the fact it was already blooming. She couldn't wait to show K her new flowers.  

In its new home

This was planted in her little pollinator bed since we did read that it was good for butterflies and maybe hummingbirds. Pooka loves having her spot of flowers, but I will admit, I no longer remember what is out there. I meant to draw a map, but well, I forgot so it's now her "random flowers" collection. Sadly, this is one of those jobs I fell behind on and I don't know if I can do it anymore. At least I have the blog which tells me what I planted if I go looking I suppose.

Purple flower chives

Finally her chives ended up in the herb bed Pooka is so excited for these and while Daddy jokes about needing to mow the rest of the chives, I know they won't stand a chance once Pooka and K can play together this summer and eat them all. 

Signs of life in the garden

This time of year is a fun one for Pooka. Daily and some times multiple times a day, she walks through her gardens and just loves watching to see what is coming back. Its almost like a second Easter bunny that comes daily. She will walk through the garden always looking for that new sign of green, and with all the rain we have had lately, things are starting to wake up.

Blueberry is waking up

One of Brother's blueberry bushes is looking rather excited to see spring. It was the first to bud and may even leaf in the next few days. The other two are budding out, but no where near this close to showing signs of green.

Raspberry

Just like the blueberries are all starting at separate points so are the two raspberry bushes. This one is green everywhere and showing lots of life. The other one I am not entirely sure it isn't dead, so we are going to focus on the fact that one of the bushes lived. Seeing all that green gave Pooka and I a bit of hope maybe we weren't getting in too far over our heads, maybe.

Chives

The chives were one of the first things up. They don't look like this much longer, but rather Daddy has been joking he may need to mow them soon. My response was more along the lines of maybe we need to be making some bake potatoes and eggs to use them up. Well, that and I need to let Pooka and her friend K at them They won't last long after that. Pooka has already gone through the chives and gotten herself a few snacks saying "Oh, how I love the first chive of the season." Seriously, I can't make this stuff up, it is how she is.

Tarragon

In the old reliable department is the tarragon. The "lets' eat the sidewalk and everything on either side" tarragon. I am actually going to have to do something about this guy since this was taken on today, and spring isn't even all that sprung. Imagine how big it would be by the end of the summer. Stay tuned for my first attempt at dividing something.

Rose bush

Gremo's rosebush came back this year. Pooka asked if her letter underneath had been destroyed during the winter. Being a coward, I changed the topic. So far all the growth seems to be at the bottom of the plant, and I am hoping that is a good sign. Never having done much with roses, I am kinda flying blind. Although Daddy asked if we should do something about the big spear.. I mean stem growing up the middle. It has HUGE thorns and no signs of life yet. I told him we wait and if its still dead looking by mid may, I will remove it.

stars

Not all of our stars survived. In fact, this seems to be the only set that did, but they are happy as can be. I am hoping they will eventually take over this area, much like they did at my grandmothers. Right now, we are just waiting to see what it does, since my attempt to bring one inside died horribly.

SURPRISE

In the "Wait that's alive?" category is the chamomile. Yeah, I am not sure why it is alive either since again, I heard it was a very temperamental annual. It seems quite happy in its little spot and Pooka actually told Ms. A (The owner of our favorite nursery) that it came back and even she was shocked. Free tea supplies for mommy and Pooka gets to once again prove people wrong.

Signs of life in the garden

We are starting to get a feel of what may come back in the garden. Not everything in the garden seems to have survived our extremely cold winter this year, but strangely, some things I had no nope for coming back are. I am just happy we are not replanting the entire bed. The chives were the first to pop up and say Hi to us.

The chives appeared

I know that this parsley seems to have reseeded itself. I am completely okay with that. In fact, I am looking for a second place to plant some more seeds.

Parsley popping up

 The thyme even started to green up, and has since taken off. Looks like we will have plenty of thyme.

Thyme greening

Our friend tarragon has also appeared and once it broke the mulch has gotten huge. I honestly thought this guy was an annual, but I won't turn him away. He has gotten so big, we have started harvesting him already.

Tarragon pops up

We have had more herbs pop up. The lemon balm that became so important to me has greened up and is looking good. Pooka's black eye susan has finally topped the mulch. I may have one lavender that will regrow, but it is fighting to see if it will. I am hoping if I can run out in between rain storms the next day or so to get a good inventory of what is out there and what I may of replaced already. Sadly our beloved Rosemary has not come back. Which is slighly weird to me since I thought they were perennial. In fact, I have seen them survive the winter in a small pot before. Oh well, I will just have to try harder to find ones that will handle the cold a bit better. I am just happy we will not have to replace the whole bed. Pooka is already out there daily "sampling" her garden and sharing it with her friends and getting them to try new things. That makes it worth it.

First Harvest

We have had our first harvest. It wasn't much, just a quarter oz of tarragon and an eighth of an oz of chives, but it means we are getting things back out of the garden. Both our tarragon and chives came back from last year, so in a way this harvest is all profit. A very tasty profit when we put it in our scrambled eggs.

Hello Harvest

Life finds a way

Pooka and I found a surprise on Monday. We were walking through the garage and I looked over at the very poorly cleaned up garden supplies. Sadly, by the time we tried to put the garden to bed last year, our hearts weren't in it, and things got thrown in our yard waste/old recycle bin.

Anyway, Monday, I looked over at the recycle bin and on top was the big pot of chives from last year. The pot Daddy loved having full of chives for cooking with. It had chives in it and a price tag to something, (this is real life folks). Not just the dead chives from last year, but new chives as well, that were growing and somehow surviving since that pot had not really seen water and more then 20 minutes of sunlight since fall.

I moved the pot out into the front porch so it could get watered/rained on and sunlight. The seedlings look in decent shape for where they were. You can see they had reached for the sunlight outside the garage, and now they should start developing really well since they are outside. This is even better since I decided this year we are not growing our own herbs from seed. I will pay for those, but here is one I don't have to rebuy. Maybe next year I will overwinter it in the house so Daddy gets his fresh chives all year. We will have to wait and see.