Garden Friday

Hey there and welcome to Garden Friday!

I have recently  
                           fallen 
                                      in 
                                                love...
with this pink dogwood tree in our front yard.
It is a symbol of the South and I'm thinking I need a few more,
just so we have a proper Southern Homestead!

 To my astonishment,
our peach trees have fruit on them.
These poor babies have been fairly neglected by previous owners,
but they are still trying to do what they are intended to do.

I'm not sure that I can nurse these trees back to health,
they are in pretty bad shape,
but this will be the first season that I can monitor their progress.
Fingers crossed!

The straw bales have not germinated one thing that was planted.
Pretty disappointing, I must say,
but we carry on anyway.
The transplanted kale seems to be happy there,
and this week we were able to transplant some lettuces that had been sown from seed.

There are watermelon and canteloupe seedlings ready to transplant,
and I'm thinking of adding them to the two ends of the bales
so that they can roam at will.

We had an unexpected cold snap and it looks like the kale didn't much appreciate it.
I took a sampling of both the kale and lettuce growing in the bales
and they tasted mighty fine.

The sugar snap peas are making slow progress up the pots.
I'm thinking I may have started these a bit too late to get much of a harvest.
I recently heard about a variety that only gets to 4 feet, so doesn't need trellising,
and that seems like a great alternative!

The potato towers are doing nicely.
The shoots are growing up out of the straw,
so I covered them with some leaves
 to protect them from the cold that we are expecting tonight.
Hopefully, this will be the last of the cold weather for a while. 
(Haven't I said that before?)

Tomatoes and melons are awaiting their turn to be transplanted.
I'll be fashioning tomato supports for the first time this year.
It's a combination tomato cage and stake gizmo
that I learned about on one of my favorite blogs, Old World Gardens.

 The deck continues to host a variety of spring and summer crops,
as well as a few surprises.
We seeded our loofha and some pigeon peas in cell packs.
I was also gifted with some cucumber starts
that I plan to put in a pot over the weekend.
I see pickles in our future!

Since I had some doubt about the viability of the snap peas and green beans,
I decided to try sprouting them in bags.
If these germinate, they'll be added to the container garden.

 The azaleas continue to amaze us with so many blooms!

Here are a few new acquisitions I picked up at a local nursery.
Two of these beauties are familiar to me,
as we had them in our Florida garden.
I'm hoping to get them installed as soon as this last cold snap passes us by.
I'll be posting about our visit to Mike's nursery next week.

We were thrilled to be visited by hummers this week.
No sooner had we hung up the feeder,
when one very persistent hummingbird made himself right at home.
You can read how we make our own hummingbird nectar here.

 It seems that spring is hesitant to stick around.
The weather has been gorgeous and then a sudden cold snap overnight
makes us think that winter will never bid us adieu.

Nonetheless, we are grateful for living a seasonal life.
C'mon spring, we're ready for you!