A few garden photos

I've been out working in the garden this morning. I weeded the onions and strawberries and prepared the place where I am going to put in my herb garden. While I was out, I took a few photos.

<----Right outside the front door beneath the Japanese Maple are these little flowers that I discovered this morning. This is right where I am planning to lay down one of those seed mats. Now I have to work around this! If anyone knows what they are, please let me know! There have also been some tiny white flowers growing in the same area, from a plant that looks like tall lawn grass. I'm not sure exactly what to do now with the seed mat, since there are things growing in this spot that are obviously perennials; I've seen them before but didn't realize they would pop up again. Arrgh!!

This is the far eastern side of the back yard, and our -------->
patio. You can see the lilacs are in bloom and the foliage underneath from some sort of climbing vine that has beautiful blue/purple flowers. They could be morning glories but I'm not sure. You can see that I'm a bit unschooled on what plants are.....! There are a couple of the patio planters in which we have planted various vegetables. A better close-up of some of those follows shortly.









<----- Calendula growing outside our basement window. The calendula is so profuse in the back yard that it is almost an invasive weed. I love it and hate to pull it out when I find it growing; however, we have quite enough of it! The oregano that ate Boise! This herb is trying to take over the rose garden. I cut it way back last fall and you can see that it hasn't been deterred at all. I hate to admit we haven't used any of it for anything, but I'm hoping to have the chance to enjoy some of it later this summer when we have tomatoes, in some fresh homemade spaghetti sauce.


Big sagebrush and flax growing peaceably <----together in one of the back yard flower beds. I love having sagebrush, and the flax is my pride and joy. Its periwinkle blue flowers are so wispy and ethereal. I cut the flax back last fall and held my breath hoping that I hadn't ruined it. But it came back this spring as lovely as ever.

My red onions, freshly weeded this morning. I've been meaning to get some onion sets as well, but just haven't done it. We love onions and can't wait until they're big enough to eat. --->
The onions are in the other flower bed, on the far west side of the back yard. Elton has also planted peppers, eggplant, and seeds for so many other things I can't remember what all he's done. There's corn, cabbage, kohlrabi ... yum!







<--- Roses! Just about to pop open! I have no idea what they are called so don't even bother to ask me. The only ones I know that we have for sure are peace roses, which is my favorite. Last year all the roses bloomed beautifully and when they were done I cut the spent blossoms, but they never bloomed again :-( Not sure what I did wrong, but I'm going to do my best to rectify it this year.

Someone's dog in our yard .. oh, wait, that's <----Kolchak, my dog. She is lounging near the patio planters. In the long purple one Elton has planted radishes (they are growing well), the one below it has peppers, and those are my peas off to the left. We also have lettuce and another pot with a Thai pepper, and more radishes. Elton loves his radishes and is anxious to see if these will grow into edible goodies.




<---Kolchak again, with the lilacs and mystery blue flowers in the background. These plants are all growing along a chain link fence, and our neighbor's yard is right on the other side. We are afforded wonderful shade and privacy thanks to the dense growth of these plants.
Below: Elton's freshly-weeded strawberries. With any luck we should have some soon!! There were a few plants here already, but he bought a few more this year and added to the patch. You can't tell which ones are which; the new ones have taken off like crazy.













So these are the first of my planned ongoing photo record of the yard and garden. This afternoon or tomorrow I hope to get back out and put in my herb garden. The tedious preparation process is over - now I get to have fun!!