Garden Friday

Welcome back to Garden Friday!
This gorgeous clematis was found in a neighbor's backyard.
It has been enjoying ample sunshine and sporadic rainfall.

This week I took some time to germinate flower seeds

using a paper towel in a repurposed plastic bag.

As you can see, within a week,

we had the beginnings of a colorful pollinator bed.

I much prefer to start my plants from seed.

The fascinating process always leaves me in awe.

With just a bit of water,

(no sun even required),

the seeds burst open to fulfill their purpose.

Amazing!

Many of them ended up in the pollinator bed

we have in the vegetable garden.

This bed is designed to promote pollination

of all of our crops needing their help.

So far, we have sunflowers and a few other 

seedlings coming up that will last throughout the summer.

In the front porch bed,

the purple salvia is about to bloom.

I discovered this plant when we were living in Florida,

and am so happy that I can enjoy it in my NC garden.

Coneflowers are planted all over the property,

but somehow, it still doesn't seem like enough.

One of my favorite blooms,

I can see sowing a lot more of these wherever I can find space.

The milkweed was cut way back in the late fall,

and has decided to come back on its own.

This is the host plant for the Monarch butterfly,

so we look forward to delighting in watching the transformation

from caterpillars to butterflies.

It's magic, I tell ya!

The alyssum has come back on its own as well.

It forms a border in our front porch bed.

The salvia, alyssum, and lantana planted here,

all help to create a blue/purple theme.

My neighbor's peonies are just about to pop.

These plants have amazed me in the past few weeks,

as they seem to grow 6 inches overnight!

In the veggie garden,

the parsley is starting to get some height.

This plant hosts the black swallowtail butterfly,

but so far, no eggs have been spotted under the leaves.

Here's a post from years back 

about the caterpillars we hosted in our Florida yard.

The lettuce seeded a couple of weeks ago is holding its own.

We sowed buttercrunch, and green oakleaf lettuce

as well as scarlet kale.

Coffee cans work well for these shallow-rooted crops.

It looks like the wire covers did the trick

so that critters couldn't dig up the seeds.

Now that they've germinated, the screens come off.

The snap peas are getting a leg up on the arches.

They were planted closer than usual,

and it doesn't seem to have bothered them one bit.

I'm thinking of harvesting some as shoots,

and leaving others to grow for pods.

The potato/onion bed is looking better every day.

When this post was written,

we were in the middle of an all-day rain event,

and when I did a quick check on the garden,

I think I actually saw the potatoes  

s

   m

     i

      l

       i

          n

              g.

There's just nothing like a good rain.

I've been working on ridding the garden area of grassy areas

by adding cardboard which will then be covered

by mulch.

If we don't get a delivery of wood chips via our local tree trimmer,

we are able to acquire them for free from our county landfill.

 More cardboard here will rid us of pesky grass and weeds.
(Have I told you how much I abhor dislike grass
for its water-robbing properties?)
This area is where our newly established asparagus bed
and strawberry tub reside (out of the photo).
The structure at the top of the photo housed our loofah plants
last year, but will this year be the trellis for hyacinth bean.
Maybe.
I'm toying with the idea of growing melons and watermelons on it.
We'll see...

And lookee what I found the other day in one of our birdhouses!
Aren't birds fascinating?!
Just look at that lovely cushy nest.
Who wouldn't want to live there?
 

And inside was an even better surprise!
We believe these to be baby sparrows
and three more siblings yet to come.
Spring is truly a magical time.

How's your garden growing?