April Garden

It's been impossibly long since I made a garden post. Please forgive me, it's been a busy few months. The fact that I couldn't really bend over properly for most of March and April either, took a bit out of my gardening gumption. Giant baby bellies will do that to ya. I had a little baby boy on 4/20. Meet Jack.

I couldn't imagine not having a garden just because I was having a baby (never mind that touching my toes became nearly impossible toward the end there). I gave up trying to take care of the seedlings I'd started and just went with starts I could buy at the nursery. Oh my. That was rather expensive for someone used to just having to shell out a few bucks for a pack of seeds. But hey, it's been nice now running out to the garden for salad greens and other goodies, so yup, worth it.

THE VEG
The veggie garden got a bit of a late start this year as you can imagine. I did finally get my tomatoes planted a few weeks late but at least they made it in (and are hiding under the plastic water cloches to protect them from cold evenings). Garlic went in last fall (the one thing I managed to do with my horrendous morning sickness) that's on the left and cilantro was planted on the right. Carrots were seeded and germinating under the board right in front of the toms.

Brassicas, lettuce, peas, spinach, radish and beets all went in this bed. I was pretty disappointed with the peas as nearly all of them failed to sprout. I think I must have exceeded the expiration date - either that or some critter was enjoying a snack of pea seeds... more on that later. I'm also not sure what I did but I actually had my spinach sprout this year. It's the same spot that sprouted a few years ago. It's the only place in my whole garden that it will apparently grow. Such a persnickety plant!

Chives, asparagus, parsley, carrots, leeks and potatoes. The chives are looking a little sparse this year, I'm not sure why. I didn't do a fall clean up last year so maybe not having been covered with straw mulch they suffered from the cold? I mean, they're fine and healthy and all just not a large and vigorous as they've been in years past. We also got to harvest the asparagus for the first time this year. Woo! It was delish. Can hardly wait for next year as this years harvest was so very small. Sadly the carrots failed to come up at all. Not sure what happened... maybe not enough sun? Leeks were transplants from another area in the garden and this was my attempt to overwinter them. They didn't like being moved but are hanging in there. Potatoes are always happy in my garden, more on them later.

And lastly the summer garden bed. Nothin' but nothing got done with this bed until, late, late, late. So here she is, pretty fallow.

FLOWERS
The nice thing about April is the garden is full of flowers. Mostly I'm lazy (shhh, don't tell anyone) and enjoy the ease of bulbs. They're pretty and very easy to grow. I pretty much just sprinkle a bit of fertilizer on them just before they bloom, cut off the dead bits after they bloom and divid them once every four years if they need it. Easy peasy.

The orange ballerina tulips are my favorite.

One random red bit of petal on a pretty yellow tulip.