Wordless Wednesday

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Sumptuous

 

Springtime’s sumptuous banquet of blossoms

a lavish feast for butterfly, bee

and me.

 

© Julie Rehnelt 2015

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I’m virtually drunk on the luscious scent of lilacs in the air right now.   They’re at their peak here and they’re absolutely glorious, I love them sooo much!  ❤

 

May your day be filled with things you love today too…

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Pleasures in Planting

I got to go out and plant yesterday!   Gosh, it felt great!  And the weather was lovely too.  ♥

Gonna make this a short one because I’m heading out there again in a little while to have my coffee on the patio and then putz around in my mom’s flower bed a bit.  There’s a high of 78 in the forecast today and I’m eager to get out there and enjoy it, so I’m just gonna share a few pictures.

So, I planted my peas and some lettuce.  😀

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Here’s my little peas after a good overnight soaking…

getting all tucked in…

and given a drink…

Grow happily little peas, I can’t wait to eat you!  😀

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 A friend of mine from Alabama sent me a sort of ‘gardener’s care package’ of seeds earlier this spring and one of them was a Mesclun salad mix.  I had already purchased my lettuce seed, so I planted two types of lettuces this year…

such tiny little seeds…

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I was afraid to plant anything else yet since we just had snow last week, but I knew peas and lettuce should be safe.  Ordinarily, around Mother’s Day is the date I typically figure the coast is clear, but with this weird spring weather we’ve been having, all bets are off.

Just planting those two things gave me the gardening fix I’ve so been needing, but wanting to do just a bit more… I also dug up and divided some terribly root-bound iris that I had planted in my mom’s flower bed over 15 years ago…

It was to the point where only one or two of these would actually bloom, but dividing them up should help a great deal.  😀

I ended up with tons of extra little iris sprouts, and had no idea what to do with them all, so temporarily I just put them into a few random pots that I had laying around until I can figure it out.

I think my sis will be happy to take a few of them off my hands to plant up at her cabin.

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Well that was it as far as what gardening I did, but while I was out there enjoying myself, I also noticed that the Lily of the Valley are sprouting up even more now.  They look like little soldiers all standing at attention…

Soldiers that will smell absolutely freaking amazing!

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And something else that will smell amazing…

LOOK!!  The lilacs have buds!

Ah sooo pretty, I can hardly wait until they start blooming!  ♥

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As I said, it was a lovely day, and I so enjoyed being out there digging around in the dirt.  Like really, you have no idea.

I think it’s safe to say spring has finally arrived in Minnesota!  ☼

~Gardening is my therapy~

Adventures in Gardening Part 10 ~ Signs of Life!

Soooo excited to find that some of my seeds are sprouting!

Look at my happy little broccoli’s!

They’re in a crowded little cluster here because they get planted in groups of 6 and then get thinned once they reach 2 inches high.

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My spinach is popping up too!

These are planted in groups of 3.

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Only found 1 of the 13 Peas I planted sprouting up so far, but it’s still early yet and I have no doubt they’ll all be popping up soon!

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After all of the excitement over seeing my newly planted seeds growing, my daughter and I went around my mom’s yard and snapped a few photos of the other various things we found growing too…

I don’t even remember how many years ago I planted these yellow tulips for my mom, but it’s so wonderful to find them still coming up every spring.

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Here is one of my most favorites ~Lily of the valley!  They are just starting to bloom…

My grandmother planted these along the side of the house when my mom was just a teenager, so these have been around for quite a while.  Last spring when my dad was in hospice at home, I would pick some of these every day and bring them in to him.  I can still picture him holding them up to his nose, closing his eyes, breathing in deeply, and enjoying their beautiful fragrance.  I miss you pops. ♥

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And of course I had to take yet even more photos of my mom’s Lilacs…

♥♥♥

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Later on, we took a drive over to my sis’s and found that the rhubarb growing in her yard was coming along nicely…

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And the strawberries are flowering as well…

We have plans to can some strawberry rhubarb jam as the strawberry growing season progresses.  It’s been a couple of years since I’ve canned so I’m pretty excited about it!

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I had this “grow” stone decorating my own garden for several years and passed it on to my mom for her garden when I moved.  I like to think of it as just giving the plants a little extra encouragement to GROW…

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How is your garden growing?

😀

Adventures in Gardening Part 8 ~ Let’s Plant!

Well, with the box all finished and now a trellis built all that is left to do is… PLANT!!!

But first a bit of planning was required and l should not be overly eager lest in my haste, I may find myself disappointed at the results.  So I spent a good hour or more sitting on the bench next to my garden drawing plans, reading seed packets, and contemplating the arrangement and combination of all the things I will be planting…

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It was beautiful sunny day and while I sat there soaking up the vitamin D, the lovely fragrance of my mom’s lilacs kept me company.  I L♥VE lilacs so much!

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After I came up with a general idea of where I wanted to place each plant that I would be growing, I decided the first thing I wanted to do with the actual bed was to break it down into sections to help me visualize things better.  I laid down some of that leftover lath to make a sort of grid. Each of the sections are roughly 2 x 2.  I don’t know if this is a normal thing to do or not, but I guess it’s how my brain operates best.  😉

Once I finish the majority of the planting I’ll pull these up…

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I always consider May 10th or so our last average frost date so I knew that according to the calender it would be time/safe to plant broccoli, spinach and peas this week.  So now it was finally time to plant something!  YAY!

You might not be able to tell by this photo, but look at how small these broccoli seeds are…

I’ve never really had much luck growing broccoli in the past, but I love eating it so much and wanted to give it another try.

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Next it was onto planting some spinach.  Yeah, Popsicle stick type stakes with the plant name written in black marker ~ not real fancy, but I’ll just be pulling these up once the plants start growing and toss them anyway, so I thought it best not to go to any great expense.  Believe me there are some pretty snazzy looking plant markers out there ~ aesthetically pleasing, yes, but in my budget this year, no…

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Gave my new little plantings a good mist of water, now the rest is up to them…

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I’ve been reading a lot about companion planting.  It’s all about growing certain things together that benefit each of them.  Spinach likes to grow near the cabbage family so I made the broccoli and spinach neighbors.  🙂

There are also certain “allies” plants have too, so I will be trying to leave open areas throughout the bed for planting some herbs and annuals that promote the health of the main vegetables that I’m growing.

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I am growing my peas in a separate pot outside of my main garden box.  I never remember reading before that peas need to be soaked for 12-24 hours prior to planting, but that is what the packet said, so I couldn’t plant my peas today.  😦  I did however get the pot ready and plan to pop them bad boys in tomorrow…

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