Gardening....

For those of you who know me - I love to garden. I wish my soil was a bit easier to deal with here on the farm, but there are ways to fix that. I was excited to have a spot to have a veggie garden, as there is nothing better than fresh tomatoes from your very own garden. The harvest started with strawberries and radishes. We had a great season of strawberries, I picked nearly an ice cream pail full every day for the month of June! The radishes were good - but I always forget to pace my planting of them and we have so many all at once and then we can't eat them all up - and they don't freeze well! Right now we are enjoying peas and yellow beans! I couldn't find any green bean seeds this year - and to be honest I like yellow ones better anyway - so I only planted yellow beans. They didn't come up as well as I had hoped, but we will get enough to have a few feeds and maybe a couple of bags in the freezer as well. I'm anxiously awaiting the beets to be ready so I can make up some pickled beets! They are a favourite in our house. And the first tomato is always a treat too! Especially with some bacon on a sandwich! And when my cucumbers come on I will be able to put a slice of cucumber on my sandwich too! My Mom and Dad have a bunch of ever-bearing raspberry bushes, so I got some from them to transplant to my place. They are called ever-bearing, because once they start to produce berries, they continue to do so until frost! I'm looking forward to the first berry off those plants as well. I worked on my flower beds as well this spring. I transplanted some Chinese lantern plants from my mom's - which is kind of funny cause I gave her the first ones that she had at her place - they look nice - but do tend to take over a little bit.... these are the beds at the back of the house - so they get lots of shade and the hostas love it! They have come up big this season. In my front bed This is when I planted the petunias! I have a few hostas and I planted some marigolds and some wave petunias. I have planted some chives in between the petunias as well although they are kind of hard to see amongst the purple and pink flowers. Hope you enjoyed my quick garden tour! Chow for now, Jacqui