Springing forward 2014

It has been a long time since my last post and I have been busy keeping the weeds away, fertilizing, pulling out dead growth, etc. but none of these activities lend themselves to blogs or photos unless you have a LOT of free time which I sadly don't at this juncture in my life. So now that the action is starting to happen it's time for a gardening blog.

Last night it was 60 degrees out at 7pm so I night gardened in the backyard, it was awesome. Have really enjoyed getting my hands back in the soil and making stuff happen, this is going to be a good gardening year I can tell already, WOOT! 

I am going to try to do my entire veggie garden from seed vs. starts this year...wish me luck! Peppers, kale and tomatoes have begun to sprout though you can't tell from this pic.

Thank baby jesus for primroses, the only real color provided in a time of very little...these are going strong thanks to fertilizer, they started to go south but I think the crisis has been averted.

Best flower smell ever: Daphne...in BLOOM, baby.

The succulents are looking succulent...gonna blow this up in the new growing season, succulents are an Oregon gardeners BFF. In the far background you can see a new lemon evergreen we planted recently (Anton picked it out). I hope it takes well...it will make things brighter during the bleakness...and it smells like lemons!!

Apricot tree is blossoming...the first of the bunch!

Camelias are going mad already, it took 3 days from the first bloom to the whole tree blowing up, these things don't waste time.

I love it when I forget I planted bulbs and then they remind me by poking on up. This little nook has a bunch of tulips about to hatch, good thinking, me!

The favas were not doing well and then Anton and I did a soil test, determining that while the Ph was fine, the nitrogen was way low like a Flo-rida song. So we boosted it back up with some fertilizer, they perked up within a day and are now about 3 inches taller. Fertilizer is healthy crack for plants and I'm super in to it, especially the organic kind...organic vegetable crack. Those are leeks, garlic and onions surrounding the favas.

this is the graveyard...actually no this is the raspberry patch and it's doing well, starting to get leaves, but looks pretty sad currently. Wait until June! Adding blueberries too so don't even hate.

It's important to remember that just because something is sold as an "annual"that doesn't mean it isn't hardy and won't come back. This bunch of chives is in it's 3rd year...it loves me and wants to be with me FOREVER!

Colin chopped the heck outta this old apple tree in the hopes that we can actually pick the apples vs. them falling from 40ft up and landing with a splat. We'll see how this goes.