Springtime in the Garden

For gardeners everywhere, springtime is when our garden-loving spirits come alive after the hibernation of winter. We have been craving fresh herbs and fresh foods, and all the fresh things that the garden brings. We want to smell all the flowers, and plant all the things. Sound familiar?

Our family has certainly been busy planting here. On Saturday we had especially beautiful weather and our family spent most of the day outdoors in the garden, which we all really appreciated.

We’ve been clearing one raised bed at a time. First weeding them, and then planting them. We have been planting vegetables, flowers, herbs, and fruit.

Knowing how much the chickens, ducks, or goats will appreciate the weeds is a good motivator for pulling them up. Anything they don’t eat is a good addition to the compost pile.

We got a grape planted, hooray! This spring we have planted a few grape plants, as well as some plum trees. We had a beloved plum tree years back that died, and we had been wanting to replace it ever since.

Grapes do well where we live and we have been determined to find room to plant a few more. We are curious to try the different varieties, and see what they are like. I’m already imagining the fresh picked grapes from the vine!

We will grow a few grapes on trellises, like we have before, but we will also be trying something new this year. Jeff wanted to grow some grapes across a flat trellis and shape them along it, espalier style. We are curious to see what that will be like.

If you think we have unlimited space with all this planting we do, we do not, but we sure make the most of every bit of space we have available!

Jeff has been making more raised beds with some repurposed wood lumber we had on hand, and there is such satisfaction in getting them into place and getting them planted. We put up another trellis for green beans. Because, well, we eat a lot of green beans, and like to preserve them for the winter too.

It’s harvest time already. Not many vegetables yet, besides lettuce, mostly we are harvesting lots of herbs. When we purchase dried oregano to add to our meals, or dried mint for tea, it reminds us to get more planted. Many herbs are so easy to grow, and the more we can grow ourselves the better.

We’ve been harvesting fresh herbs to add to salads like parsley, oregano, garlic chives, calendula, and thyme. We’ve also been harvesting fresh herbs to make sun tea. Lately it’s been mint, lemon balm, lemon verbena, bergamot mint, and catnip.

We were all grateful when the roses started blooming because that means rose water. We’ve been making rose water with the fresh rose petals as often as possible. If you love roses, you have access to some fresh roses, and you haven’t tried making rose water yet… I would highly recommend it. It’s wonderful.

The herbs we’ve been harvesting for drying have been nettles, mint, oregano, motherwort, raspberry leaves, marshmallow leaf, mullein, mugwort, and catnip. Oh, and jasmine flowers, and rose petals. And fir needle tips.

Jeff and B got our dehydrator fixed, and back up and running just in time to keep it busy every day. We also set screens on drying racks in the living room and dry herbs on those. Herbs are everywhere! Jars of dried herbs. Herbs being washed near the sink. Herbs drying on racks.

We just got the potatoes tucked in with straw mulch. We planted some raspberries in a far off corner. (How they like to spread!) We have to replace a bunch of our cucumber starts we planted in the garden because they did not like the change in weather when it got rainy and cold. Good thing we planted extras!

Well, I just wanted to share some of the things happening around here in the spring garden. What is happening in your gardens right now? What are you planting? What are you excited to grow?



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