May Garden Update

Some sort of double daffodils I think - but maybe not.

It has been more than a little bit hectic around here.  My son's car decided to not work, leaving us with 1 vehicle and 3 drivers, one of whom commutes 35 minutes each way to work.  We had people coming and going and driving others to work until someone got smart and rented a car for a few days.  It was a weird car, with a very low front passenger seat.  It was so low that I could barely see out the window and it made me horribly car sick every time I went for a ride.  What fun that was!

The weather was nice enough that I have been able to get out and do yard work.  I have weeded the garlic, which now needs it again.  The flower beds in front of the house are almost done.  I've gotten rid of almost all the thistles growing in the lawn.

The rhubarb will be soon ready to harvest.

  These are things I haven't been able to do for several years, so it's been fun and exhausting to do them again.  There is a big bread celebration day at Westfield on June 14th and I've been researching information for that and to present a bread and bake oven workshop.  The workshop was yesterday and I came home exhausted.  The good thing is that I can do way more than I could, but the track back to normalcy does seem frustratingly slow at times.

The garden still needs to be tilled.   On the bright side, I realized that I have 5 year old Madder to harvest and there are flowers and fruits doing what they are supposed to do at this time of year. 

The garlic needs weeding again!

The trees are covered with little green leaves.  Last weekend there was barely a haze of green on a few early shrubs and trees like Lilacs and Willows.   Now everything is dressed in green, spring finery.

I noticed today that there are flowering trees in the neighbours bush lot. They looked delightful and full of promise.   I'm pretty sure they are just sort of pin cherry tree or buckthorns, but they are still pretty.

I was able to get out and prune the Black Currant bush this spring.  The remaining stalks are full of flowers this year.   Unfortunately it is a variety that is susceptible to blossom drop when we get a bit of cold weather.  We have a deep dip in temps forecast for the middle of next week.  I hope I remember to cover it up .  I have harvested a whole 2 berries in the past 3 years because of the blossom drop issue.   I have researched cultivars and I am hoping to find a hardier variety this year.

 The strawberry patch might just give us a few more berries this year.  We have lots of flowers, a good number of plants and this year I should have the mobility to make sure the bird netting is on in time and the little dishes of beer get set out for the slugs.

The best tasting strawberries are those fresh and still warmed by the sun.

I planted these Haskaps late last summer.  They were deeply discounted at a hardware/department store's garden centre.  There were lots of plants and nobody knew what they were.  I came home, looked them up and went back and purchased one.  I came home, researched a bit moret and then went back into town to get a second one, in a second variety, because you need two different types to cross pollinate.

Haskaps are edible Honeysuckle berries.  They are supposed to be incredibly hardy, with a lower rating of gardening zone 3!   They are blue and are described as having a blueberry/raspberry taste if they are quality plants.   A bad variety might taste like tonic water though.  If I have one of those, it is going to be replaced rather quickly!    They bloom and produce fruit in their second year.   The fruit is supposed to ripen 3 weeks before Strawberries, making them a really good short season fruit.  

With the late planting, thus a shorter time to develop a root system and the harsh, long winter, I worried that they might not have survived.  But here they are, with little flowers.   Hopefully they will give fruit, since I noticed that the second bush has finished flowering already, but this one still has some blossoms on it.

Yesterday the Bleeding Hearts were just little mounds of greenery.  Today this one and only this one, has burst forth with multiple stalks of pink blooms for Mother's Day.   It was a rather sweet gift to find this morning.