The weather has been cooperative so we made a huge amount of progress in the garden this week! Everything has been growing like crazy and most of the fruits are blooming which makes me very excited! My gigantic hydrangeas are almost all the way leafed out and there are the beginnings of blossoms on them and I can’t wait for them to be in full bloom. This weekend I tried to go to the plant sale to buy a ground cherry for our daughter but our son fell asleep while I was trying to find parking so I ended up just heading home and moving a bunch of plants out of our vegetable garden. Hopefully our mother-in-law will pull through and get us one from her friend because we tried finding them at Home Depot where we saw them last weekend and they were out. Maybe our daughter won’t notice if we don’t have them this year since we have so much else going on in the garden.
I spent some time moving smaller plants around in the front bed. I moved two succulents closer to the street in preparation for the fence going in and transplanted two flowers from the vegetable bed. I still have a couple of plants to move in this bed to make room for the fence but I don’t know where to put them yet. I might dig up some of the grass along the gravel strip and put them there but I haven’t decided.
I couldn’t really get a good before picture of the vegetable bed and show all of the plants since the one is gigantic, but I removed another butterfly bush (gave it to my mom) and shuffled the large bush and two white butterfly bushes down to the south side hill where friends dug up other plants last week. The move will be temporary since I will be eventually redoing the side yard but I don’t know exactly what to do with them yet so they will be there for at least a year, probably closer to two or three before they are moved again.
We also started to put our pest control fence in around the vegetable bed. We bought it at Home Depot and buried it a little bit around the edges just in case.
My husband tackled the big bush. It was pretty deep in there and had a huge root ball. I moved it to a dubious spot since the soil on the hill seems to be very shallow, much shallower than where we took the bush from. We have several of these bushes and they are pretty but they need to be trimmed back every month or so otherwise they take up way too much space. I just don’t have that sort of time with little kids right now so I am trying to pass them along to other people.
It got dark before I could take a really good after picture but basically there is a gigantic hole where the bush was removed that we will be filling in at some point in the next week or so. I am going to plant a bean house in that corner for the kids to play in while I garden. They will love it!
While I was out and about in the garden I took some pictures of what our plants are doing. All of the fruit trees, bushes and plants are blooming and our outdoor seed starts are doing well. Now that the vegetable bed is cleared out I am going to try to get everything into the ground this week and keep it protected from pests. Phew.
I am particularly pleased with our lettuce starts and strawberry tower. Most of the strawberry plants are growing and blooming and they will be fun for the kids to pick when they are ripe.
Our one potted tomato is doing well and has grown quite a bit. I need to get the other two into pots this week and plant our remaining hardened off seed starts. I still don’t know where to put the Hula berries but I need to decide this week.
Here are some of the flowers coming up along our walkway and my daughter’s fairy garden. Some of her flowers are past their prime but her hens and chicks are starting to spread out a bit. This pot is her responsibility and she loves to water it and take care of it. I may show her how to pinch back the dead flowers this week but I have to do it when our son is occupied so he doesn’t run over there on his own and “help”.
The remaining strawberries I planted on the slope are very healthy and growing super fast.
Our chocolate mint plant is spreading like a weed. We thought we had killed it last winter but it resprouted this spring and is doing it’s job of soil control on the slope opposite the strawberries.
We had a great time working in the yard this week! Hopefully by next week all of our vegetables will be in the ground and I will be able to get to the badly needed mulching and pruning!
What is going on in your garden this week?
