Day 44

   This is the first entry since Saturday, and since we had a partial solar eclipse on Sunday, I'm posting one of the pictures we took of the dappled sun/shadows on the siding of the tree leaves.  It's so cool how we can see the upside down image of the sun's crescent.

   Our spring veggies SFG box on Day 44.  I have since planted those two squares vacated by the radishes.  Yesterday's daily high was 91 degrees and set the record for the area.  It comes as no surprise that I found one of the spinach plants starting to set buds.  ^^;  I'm still picking them and using them in my soups, stir fries, and salads and they seem to come right back overnight. :D  The two squares of Mesclun salad mix seem to do the same.  I make myself a nice big plate of salad and the next morning, I can't really see where I pinched off leaves.

   Baby pea pod on the vine.  The Alaska peas have been blooming and started growing baby pods.  It's fun to see things producing.  These plants are now 27 inches tall.  They have tendrils holding onto the support strings as well as onto each other and practically standing straight up as a whole. ^_^

   The tallest corn plant in the Corn Box is now measuring about 8 inches tall.  Both the first crop and second crop have successfully germinated and been growing nicely.  Corn is so fun to watch.  Here's one of out kitties strolling in the SFG zone of our backyard, keeping herself to the pathway. :D

   The Mammoth Russian seedling with the second set of leaves.  This one and a bunch of Mammoth seedlings are doing well.  Other annuals that have germinated nearby include four o'clocks and "Bright Lights" cosmos (yellow, orange, red).  I hope I can get a nice cutting garden strip/natural fence out of them in the peak of summer. 

Day 34

   It was hot yesterday and we are seeing even more growth on these plants on Day 34.  It has been windy this morning and I gave them a drink before taking this picture.  Soil looks darker when wet, providing a nice contrast to the greens.  The radishes have really started growing fast -- they're bursting out of their squares.  The "Alaska" peas on the left are now about 12 inches tall.

   Corn Box on Day 17.  Neat rows of corn seedlings on the right half of the box.  They were still in the shade of the house when this picture was taken, but they'll come out of that shade by 9:30.  It has been many seasons since I grew corn in the backyard, so this is exciting!

   Now onto other things in the backyard.  Here's a sunflower seedling (Along with elm tree seedlings and tumble weed seedlings ... I must bust them before they get big and become a nuisance.)  This sunflower is getting plenty of sun (Look how dark the stem is already.) and plenty of moisture.  I have also given it a drink of sea kelp solution already.  I want to see HUGE sunflowers this summer. ^^

   Morning glory seedlings.  I have planted two different kinds in several spots.  These guys popped up first.

   A new plantings of dianthus near the jellybean shaped pond in the backyard.  Now we have solid magenta kind and magenta and white bi-color.

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...

Spring Vegetables Box: Day 16

   The spring vegetables box that got started on April 8th (Easter Sunday) is now starting to look fun with seedlings in just about every square.  This is when things start to get exciting.  Their growth is noticeable from one day to the next.

   It's been a fun chore to pick out the seeds from the Chinese Elm trees in the neighborhood that fall in our SFG boxes.  They're so pesky this time of the year.  Years ago, I lived next to an old couple who enjoyed flower gardening in a smaller scale.  The old man would be seen vacuuming the elm seeds with his Electrolux out in their driveway, vacuuming the flower bed.  I thought it was comical back then, but now I think he was brilliant.   I got the paving blocks brought over from the abandoned garden plot to keep my shoes from getting muddy when I water the boxes.  This has been a "build as you go" kind of project all along.

   The "Alaska" peas seedlings.  I planted two to a hole.  Almost all of them successfully germinated, so I'll have to thin them when they get a little bigger.  I just realized that the recommended spacing for peas in the SFG method is 8... not 9. XD  Oh, well. (I guess I can pluck out the center ones from each square?)

   My husband got the frame for the third box ready.  We'll put a weed barrier on the bottom and it will be growing a crop of corn for us this season.  There will be a fourth box of summer vegetables.  I'm still waiting for the local nursery's veggies to grow a little bigger.  I checked their green house yesterday and their tomato, pepper, and eggplant were still tiny baby seedlings.  Technically, our area's average last day of frost is April 29.  There has been some years with killing frosts as late as the first week of May, so I'm going to play it safe with those tender summer veggies and wait a little longer.

   Bridal Veil shrub coming into bloom.  Our cats love to curl up under this shrub, hidden away from others, cool from the hot sun.  Speaking of hot, it was almost 90 degrees yesterday.  The weather man on the news said it's about 20 degrees above the normal average daily high for this time of the year.

   And because it's been so warm, my irises have started blooming about a week ago.  This is a rhizome I got from a friend years ago and I don't know the name of the variety, but I have many around the house. XD   I did a better job of keeping the weed under control in my perennials bed last season, and they seem to be doing much better.