I LOVE RAIN!!

And so does the garden.

Surprise flowers

We have white Lady Banks! The plants were supposed to all be yellow. We were so surprised to see these beautiful white flowers. I love the roses. I have plans to increase my rose collection over the years. The double knock out have been so far worth their cost. The one in the picture gets more sun than the other one right now but as we move into the summer the sun will move enough that the other rose will look really good as well. They are getting better established.

We have some volunteer green beans. If they were bush beans, I would be more excited. I have about 4 or 5 pole bean sprouts but they aren't in a position to be trellised. I am going to leave them for a little while to see what happens. Apparently when you totally neglect the garden for several months and all the beans dry and fall to the ground, the garden still blesses me and doesn't give up. What a lesson in perserverance. My garden is not hte most hospitable place in the world. It is usually too dry, overgrown and generally untended. Yet it still brings me a great deal of hope as these plants work hard and be fruitful despite my not so green thumb.

The spring flowers have been blooming. I love the spirea and the Lady Banks. They are so exciting to see come out. The Lady banks have been more prolific this year than ever before. The veggies that are planted are doing great. In fact the peas have started climbing. I have the seeds to begin planting more this weekend. We are going for slow and steady wins the race. Hopefully, by the time the baby comes things will be pretty well established and I can just maintain 15 or 20 minutes a day in the summer. I am also hoping against hope for rain. We are not the only ones in the US that are worried about rain but it would really be a blessing if it actually rained this weekend as much as they are forcasting. The weather people I think really want to believe that we will get the rain but unfortunatly it rarely comes to pass. It barely sprinkled this morning and now the clouds have moved off and the weather is absolutely gorgeous. It is cool and breezy and bright. I opened my windows and have fresh air coming in. I love the spring. I have always been more partial to the fall but the spring has become such a wonderful time. I think its the gardener in me that is blossoming too. I have been dreaming of chickens also. I would love to have a chicken or chickens again. They are really great animals. They are cheap to maintain and cute to watch, plus provide good manure and eggs. They are all around a perfect backyard pet. Our family could completely stop buying eggs for the summer with just a few chickens. Ayla and I were looking at a blog with a woman who has just had lambs. They are so beautiful. I know that farming is an incredible amount of work but so rewarding. I am hoping that Dave and I will be in a position sometime in the future to have a small farm.

New Growth

One of my favorite things in the world is seeing plants appear from a seed. I'm not usually very successful with seeds but I have great hopes. My carrots seeds have not come up and I have found that they are the most difficult to be patient for. They take a long time to germinate in optimum conditions. 10-25 days. We've had some oscillating cold and heat and so I'm not sure how the weather will affect their germination rate. However, the lettuce I planted has sprouted and the peas. I'm very excited about the peas. I am trying several new things this year. In a couple of weeks we will put in tomatoes, green beans and cucumbers probably. Then, corn, pumpkins and maybe some squash. I have a large area that need to be prepared for planting though. I haven't quite worked out how to get water I need there. I like the bucket and scoop method, advocated by the Square Foot Gardening book. I may have to just try to be really consistent with that. I would love to have a go at some things like corn and pumpkins. We also need more flowers. The last couple of years have been awfully dry and erractic and some of my perennials have had it. I did notice this morning that my two strawberry plants have flowers all over them. This is really good news. I have plans to put more strawberries in this weekend. I am trying to go slow, get things established before I move to the next thing. It is encouraging that I have seeds growing with all that's going on in life. Spring is a time of rebirth, regeneration and growth. I feel those changes in my bones. With Abigail coming and school there is alot of growth happening this year.