A few things from the garden, courtesy of my new camera.    I’m already loving the macro function.

  I am super impressed with the climbing rose in my garden – after the last two winters, I wasn’t convinced it was going to survive.    It’s actually blooming quite nicely now – I think having to clear out all the deadwood was actually good for it. The lilies are also doing great, especially

In which I include a single, pathetic image taken from inside my garage because it’s raining cats, dogs and probably a few sheep outside… I did make it out on Friday (took the day off) to buy some herbs: basil, Thai basil, lemon thyme, oregano, chocolate mint, nasturtiums and parsley, as well as a token

I’m in a weird kind of holding pattern with the garden at the moment.   One issue is that Memorial Day (one of our planting benchmarks) is on the early side this year, which had not lined up very well with my other benchmark – blooming iris.     I actually do have one blooming,

Garden clean up continues.    This time, it was the annoying variegated bush in the front yard.   Notice how it’s poking through a hole in the shutter?    Well, it’s under much better control now. It’s really amazing what a week of 70 degree weather will do.   I left for Florida on Sunday.

The daffodils are fully out.   It is Spring! So here’s the status of the seed starts.   I have two kale.    The beets are so bad.   Swiss chard is a bit of a bust.   I’m going to have to thin the carrots and sorrel.    The cilantro and nasturtiums were a

My yard is so close to being snow free!!     So last weekend, my big project was to prune out the poor, winter blasted hollies.    You can see all the sticks I got out, and the final result above.     This week, I invested in some holly food, and also mulched them

So in the depths of February, in the worst of the cold, I got a Burpee’s enewsletter with free seed shipping.   You can imagine what happened next.    I mean, I pretty much had SAD at that point. I’ve not done seed starting before because of space considerations, and what light I have available.

In my final gardening act of the year, I spent all morning yesterday raking out the back yard.    I had done a little prep two weeks ago when I cleaned out the driveway and back staircase area and started a pile in the back yard, but I don’t think I’ve ever done all my bagging