Without a doubt, spring is my favorite time of year. After some earlier tedious work when the cold soil quickly turned fingers numb, now the days are noticeably longer and the temperatures rising, bringing forth a burst of backyard activity. We live in the Northeastern United States where winters are too cold and summers are too hot, so spring is the magical time when one can do some work in the yard without breaking a sweat. Now that our early plantings are thriving, I love just walking around, keeping tabs on who is doing what.
My raised beds (above) on the patio are tiny, but perfectly placed for making a quick salad. We have lots of kale going this year, along with some different lettuces and spinach. There are some garlic bulbs there on the end of the far bed that are doing nicely, and along the right our mass of sugar snap peas are already in bloom! (below)
A few years ago we began making a switch to more fruit. Here are the first crop of strawberries just starting to ripen on three-year-old plants. We should have an excellent crop this year, as long as we can keep the pesky rodents from eating them first!
Here's a pesky rodent now . . .
On to the tiny apples on a ten-year-old tree . . .
I haven't had much luck with beets, but here are some new sprouts giving it a go. Probably should have gotten them started a little sooner.
The tomatoes we started from seed indoors are looking fantastic.
Okay, a closer pic of the chickens for the chicken people . . .
The patio was partly designed as a grape arbor (along with a very posh canoe storage unit). I have a four-year-old vine, a two-year old vine, and a one-year-old, and this will be the first summer when the entire underside of the roof will be hanging with juicy fresh fruit!
Just getting started . . .
Tiny grapes already forming . . .
And then there are the hopvines, currently growing a foot a day! I swear if you look closely at the photo you might actually see them moving :)
I hope you enjoyed the tour of my backyard! And I hope if you are not in the midst of your own growing season this might have inspired some rolling up of the sleeves. Spring is a truly magical time when you slow down, get close, and pay attention to what is actually happening. It is an annual opportunity to reconnect with nature, and it is hard for me to imagine letting a season pass me by.
Cheers!
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Very pretty and well-organised! These sugar snap peas are delicious. We have snow peas nearing towards the end, but when they come we keep eating them until we can't look at them anymore :)
I'd second that reconnection with nature... it's very beneficial for our immune and nervous system!
We eat most of the peas right off the vine! I planted more this year because the kids like the so much. Thanks for commenting.
Pesky rodents 😂🤣
It's been a while but I got around to you! Great progress you got going on.
My spinach and lettuce aren't doing too well, I started out late. So we might have to grow them indoors.
Our strawberries are doing good too! Ants and some snails are munching on them though. My son @futurefarmers posted our harvest and I hope we can get more out of our patch..before the pesky critters get to them...
I’m trying bird netting over the strawberries to maybe keep the squirrels at bay, but I have a feeling they will just laugh at me. I’ve never tried growing greens indoors. I will have to research that. Good luck!
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