Corn Seedlings Plus Other Flowers Around the House

   Their tiny tips poked up two days ago, but it would not have shown in the photo with all the specks of colors in the soil mix, so I waited till this morning to take a picture.  Corn seedlings look like baby canna and so easy to distinguish from the seedlings of elm trees.  I can be pretty casual about pulling the weeds in this box.

 
   My pots on the back steps out of the kitchen.  I think the garden fairies are enjoying a little more color than before now that the pansies and sweet williams are producing more blooms. ^^

   Around the house to the front yard.  The magenta peonies have fully bloomed.  My camera has the hardest time capturing the deep bluish red colors like this flower's.  But you can see the silky shine on the petals and how they pick up the light.

   Another angle of the same peony bushes that are producing the magenta blooms.  They are in the shade of the wisteria vines, protected from the mid-day sun.

   The "Samurai Warrior" irises have started blooming.  They have the wonderfully rich, maroon-brown, brick-red color with beards showing orange and purple.  Blooms are rather large for their overall stature.

   Another angle, looking at the same two blooms.  The colors are delightful against the fresh green of the grass in the morning light.

Day 28

   The spring veggies box on Day 28.  It's hard to believe it has been 4 weeks since we got this box started.  It's also been a lot of fun to keep visual record of growth.  I slept in this morning, so this photo was taken in full sun when the boxes were out of the house's shade.  Everything looks brighter. :D  You can see the radishes are starting to overflow from their squares. And the Alaska peas (farthest back to the left) are about 8 inches tall now.  The corn box (SFG Box 3) is just now starting to see seedlings appear.  They are still too little to show up well in photos, so I'll wait a few days before taking pics of them.  It took them about 11 days to germinate.

   The irises from the front yard.  The pale blue ones do so well in my yard and they have dominated in good years and bad years.  I have not seen the two-tone pink ones in several years, so I'm delighted to see them come back.  I think they look lovely together.

   The white peony I took a picture of on Friday, May 4th, has fully blossomed.  It was already too heavy for the stem to support the weight of the bloom and it was drooping. I had to prop it up with my left hand for this photo. ^^;  So many soft white petals, accented with streaks of magenta.  I love it!

   My camera has a really hard time capturing the deep magenta hue.  Same thing happens when I take a picture of Sweet Williams and the First Prize rose.  The color of this peony is actually bluer and deeper magenta.  It just started opening yesterday, so it still has a little more to go before it looks as stunning as the white one.

   One of the two pots of canna I have in the front porch.  They are one of the giants of summer plants, and therefore, really fun to watch them grow.  Especially now that the daily highs are consistently in the mid 80s, they are really liking it and show their appreciation of the hot sun by growing fast.  The seedlings of dwarf marigolds encircling the pot are also doing well.

   My Russian Olives in the front yard have started blooming and they smell absolutely wonderful!  It's a refreshing, green scent, not like the other spring flowers like lilac and wisteria, but it wakes up your senses and makes you want to take a deep breath and keep repeating.  I just LOVE the smell of these tiny yellow flowers.  I grew these two trees from one-year-old branches that were rooted in the soil medium.  When I got them from a friend, they were no thicker than a pencil and not much taller than a foot.  They are now about 15 feet tall and equally wide after 15 years.

Day 26

     It's hard to believe it's been 26 days since we put this SFG box started.  These are still baby plants, but the whole thing looks so fun right now, now that each square is getting more filled out with one variety of vegetable to make it distinct.  I thinned out the Swiss Chard this morning so that I have one each of the four colors: pink, red, orange, and yellow.  I pinched off the above-ground portion of seedlings about 1.5 inches.  I washed the little leaves and tasted them right away.  They were mild with the fresh green taste.  Yum! :D

   The "Alaska" peas are now about 6 inches tall.  They are the fastest growing veggies in this box.

   Years ago, I had seeds from the "Blue Flower Garden" packet of mixed seeds.  I scattered them in the backyard and on the side of the front lawn.  We still get volunteer plants of Bachelor's Buttons.  Most of them are blue, but I spotted a deep purple one.  We had very little precipitation this past winter and spring, so the plants are shorter than usual and blooms are smaller.  Still pretty, though. ^_^

   A fluffy peony bud in the front flower bed.  These guys have a few magenta streaks inside of them.

      The first peony bloom of the yard.  It's already too heavy for the stem to support, so it's leaning over. ^^;

   One of my favorite irises in my yard -- pink and magenta.  This was also in the mixed batch of rhizomes that I got from a friend years ago and I don't know the name of the variety.  I generally love the two-tone irises like these.  I have another variety that is peach on top with reddish purple on lower petals, but I haven't seen them in a while...

Lots More to Come

   We have been talking about and studying up on the backyard chickens.  So, the new building project for my husband is the chicken coop.

   Our back porch is turning into a project porch. :D  Here's the view of the part of the lumber that's going to be turning into the frame of the chicken coop.  You can also see the bags of compost, a bag of vermiculite, and the 4th box frame for the summer veggies box.

 
   The view of the strawberry box this morning.  The plants have not suffered from the transplant shock, just a bit of trampling by the cats. ^^;  There are some tiny berries and more flowers.

   Along the fence are our newly planted raspberry plants.  This one is showing a lot of little white flowers.  Looks like one of the five I planted is completely dead, so I'll have to buy a replacement soon.  The remaining four are doing well.

 
   One of my favorite trees -- Russian Olive -- is loaded with flower buds.  I've been smelling the blossoms throughout the town, but our trees in the front yard have not started blooming yet.  We have so many of these trees in the area that for weeks in May, we can smell the wonderfully refreshing scent of their flowers.  They say these trees have a huge need for water and the city government lists them as 'pests' and call them 'undesirable'.  I love them though, for their cool silvery green foliage and the fragrance of the flowers.

   One of the peony bushes in the front yard, showing buds.  They are looking really lush this year.  I hope they have huge blooms.  Aside from the magenta colored ones, I also have white and pale pink.