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.

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.