This is such a miraculous time of the year. The garden boxes transform from barren to full of hope; the yard is all a-twitter with birds – even our blue bird houses have residents (but not blue birds!). As last year, we have four raised vegetable boxes total – one is our “berry box” (not shown, going on its 4th year) that has blueberries, black berries, strawberries and raspberries (and now one tomato that we just didn’t have room for anywhere else); one vegetable box has some sweet yellow corn, sweet bell peppers, tomatoes, cucumber, broccoli, eggplant, kale, and romaine, as well as colorful Swiss Chard remaining from last season; a third box has newly planted tomatoes, peppers, and red and green romaine, and also has the previously planted “Methuselah” artichoke plant that has been there for four years now, as well as Swiss chard and spinach and even one brave miraculously-made-it-through-Winter tomato, each respectively planted from seed last season, and some remaining leek and brussel sprouts also from last season; and the final (fourth) box, fairly small in size, has a red flame seedless grape (3rd season) and a tomato. I still need to squeeze some fresh basil in there somewhere! Also what we hope to start this season: COMPOSTING! Oh my!!!!
A fun quip from my husband: Whenever we go to the garden to harvest some veggies for dinner (such as when we snip some Swiss Chard that has graced our dinners all winter long), we call our harvesting trips to the veggie garden “going grocery chopping” – I so love his sense of humor!
Here are some before and after photos, that show the transformation from barren beds to sunny gardening bliss:
BEFORE PHOTO: Lovely greens and marigolds waiting in their little six-packs to be planted and thrive!
BEFORE: Empty beds waiting - as you can see in this photo, before planting everything looks barren, but it won't be long before these boxes are full of happy little plants!!
BEFORE PHOTO: Little six packs of Veggie Hope all lined up!
AFTER: Such a Sunny transformation!
AFTER: View from the garden gate - so inviting! Bring your coffee!
View from inside the gate looking out - see our little Chihuahua-Pomeranian-Papillion-One-of-a-kinder dog waiting for us to toss his ever present tennis ball!
Another photo of our little dog - If you throw that tennis ball, that would be GREAT!
Everything looks sunny and happy!
This is our Swiss Chard grown from seed - I never knew how much I loved Swiss Chard until I had the fresh-from-the-garden variety! -And adds beautiful color too!
Squirrel Mort says hello! He's been eating some of the greens we planted, I think!
