Finally Spring 2012

So, it has been an very LONG TIME but, spring is finally here in the west Cascades (at least in my micro-climate).

The flowers are blooming. My girl loves to pick the flowers. She collected a variety of blooms from the yard and placed them in a bowl for Mother's Day. 3 rhododendron, dandelion, pansy, petunia, cherry, camillia, and buttercup.

I had started seedlings indoors and set them out a few weeks ago. 2 days later they were GONE!
Slugs had feasted!

My daughter and I now go slug hunting in the evening and feed them to the chickens.
To battle slugs I put out more beer traps and sprinkled the soil with coffee grinds. We will see how that goes.


My new seedlings just will not be big enough in time for our very short growing season for summer vegetables.
I broke down (not really) and went to the store and bought some transplants.


Three fruit trees are still in pots. Although, they are in big pots!

I did some clean-up on the blackberry patch.

Re-designed my herb garden. inspiration from the chickens and the dog who decided an un-planted basil patch would make a great ball burial plot. Painted rocks for herb signs 'cause there is no shortage of rocks!

Cleaned out the foundation beds and planted some hardware store clearance.

Working on re-locating the calla lillies into the rock wall bed. The large tropical looking foliage does well with the big rocks.

Here is a collage of a few things in the garden.

Oh yeah, the orchard trees are blooming. Even the big apple that is still on "crutches" and the little apple(?) stump we transplanted from the meadow.