Pollinators

The stachys hummelo is doing its job... Feeding butterflies!

Memorial Day facing Boalsburg...

So pleased with the front garden beds. They are weed free, and filled with perennials that will flower throughout the seasons. All these photos were taken on Memorial Day weekend.

Here's what we have, from East to west...

- The Hanoki pine... Great place for birds to hide, or even nest? 

- Liatris spicata about to be planted

- black pine, not doing too great. The front is strong, but the back looks like it's dying.

- transplanted day lilies from a shady spot in the back yard where they never bloomed. I hope we'll get to see what they look like this year.

- two mugo pines

- daffodils and grape hyacinth and regular hyacinth

- astilbe with red flower head and greenish red leaves

- backdrop of tall perennial grass

- Black-eyed Susan

- two wild indigo (ice blue)

- bird bath

- stachys humelo

- penstemon tubaeflorus

Other side of front porch:

Bleeding heart

Hasta

Lily of the valley

Iris

Ferns

On the front porch...

And also our gorgeous dogwood that has finally taken off. It was planted over a drainage field and was stunted for 10 years until it's roots found their way.

Massive planting

Managed to prep a pretty good chunk of garden.

Most wonderful thing was discovering (or rediscovering) a fully composted weed pile which added tremendous organic matter to a bed that wasn't in bad shape to begin with.

Sunday, April 24th:

Cilantro
Chioggia beets
Nantes carrots
Dante carrots
Nasturtium
Bok choy
Spinach
Lettuce

Soaking beans

Brutal cold snap

Early this past week, temps dropped to the 20's just a few days after temps in the high 60's caused bud burst all over town.

These mushy bleeding hearts were a casualty in my yard - But I'm definitely worried about fruit crops on farms in our surrounding valleys.

Wah.

Garlic

Sometimes you get a break. One you didn't deserve.

Today I divided and replanted at least 80 garlic plants. I abandoned the garlic plot two years ago after the harvest showed what I thought was a fungus infesting the heads.

Turns out it was frost damage, and the survivors made it through last summer and were ready to go again this summer.

Awesome.

Chard - so far so good

Well, they nearly cooked Friday morning, but I managed to remember to vent around 11, and they survived. Their contemporaries under the light in the house are getting leggy and falling over, but otherwise they look about the same right now.

Two out of seven in the cold frame have been munched. Perpetrator has not been identified.

Chard

I can't remember how long ago exactly, but the kids and I started chard, basil, and nasturtium.

I don't have a good light set up so I always have leggy seedlings.

I decided to place some of the chard seedlings out in the cold frame. About half.

The ones inside will get leggy and will outgrow their egg cartons.

The ones outside will die because:
1. They were too young to transplant
2. A bug or fungus will eat them
3. I will cook them in the cold frame, long before they've grown big enough for cooking
4. Some other killer I've yet to experience

OR we will get lucky and have beautiful rainbow chard in a month.

Stay tuned.