It seems that all the flower pictures I've posted so far this year are crocuses. Well, they are really at their best today so here are some more! 

Glory-of-the-snow just started blooming yesterday!

I've been trying to get a good picture of the whole flower garden but the camera can't seem to do it justice unless the garden is full. But here it is anyway. 

Well, I better go get back to work! There is so much to do in the gardens right now. I planted Shirley poppies and love-in-a-mist directly in the garden yesterday. This morning I planted zinnias, balsam, and four o'clocks inside. I ran out of potting soil, but still need to plant marigolds, cosmos, cauliflower, cabbage, and more phlox and stocks. Outside, I'm working on expanding the vegetable garden. Hopefully I'll get some pictures of that work in progress soon!

I started building a short wattle fence around my largest flower garden yesterday. It really compliments the flowers and looks so much nicer than the rock border I tried before (it was hard to mow around so the grass grew up and covered the rocks!). I was surprised at how easy it was to make. It's a great early spring project when there isn't much else that can be done yet! 

First, I cut 1/2 to 1 inch in diameter, 12-18 inch long, stakes from some newly fallen trees on our property. (Do be careful with the hand saw, though! I cut my finger to the bone with it last year!) The hammer is to pound them into the ground with. I found that it was actually pretty easy to just push them into the ground by hand, because it is very soft right now. 

It may help to cut the ends of the thicker stakes like this before driving them into the ground.

I placed the stakes about 18 inches apart. They could be closer if you want a tighter fence.

For the fence, you'll need planty of long, flexible branches that are as straight as possible (I had some trouble finding enough that were straight, as you can probably tell from the picture!) Most of the branches I used were Box Elder side shoots and Red Osier dogwood. They are woven between the stakes. When you have built up to the height you want, start again at the next section until you complete the fence.

Almost done! And my next project is a bean arbor! :)

Just a quick update since I haven't posted anything in a week. You just never know what the weather is going to do around here! We woke up to a white world 3 times last week!

 So all my flowers were just sitting there waiting (more patiently than me, I'm afraid) for the sun to come out again. The crocuses opened at long last, this afternoon. ​What a difference a day can make! I remember last year we got 8 inches of snow on May 16th, and a couple days later I was planting corn!

Much more garden news to share when I have a little more time, but wanted to get this in anyway!

Christ is Risen! I suppose almost everyone associates Spring flowers with Easter as they give us new joy and hope after a long dreary winter. Up here we don't always have flowers by this time, but I'm excited to say that this year we do! (We are supposed to get a couple inches of snow tomorrow, though). These are Species crocuses, which are a lot smaller than the Dutch, but they bloom even earlier, so who cares?

Music is as much a part of my life as gardening, and I just had to share this beautiful Piano Concerto by Tchaikovsky here. The first 3 minutes of it are especially moving, and I always think of Spring and flowers when I hear it...

In my last post I was hoping to see some spring bulbs "in the next couple weeks"! Well, gardening is full of surprises, especially in Spring! If I had just waded through the snow and looked a little closer, I probably would have seen some tulips emerging even then! I did see them the next day, coming right up through the snow! Apparently the deep snow cover we had from late November until now kept the ground quite warm. Today I discovered some crocuses with buds already, where there was snow yesterday! 

Every morning I go out to see what more has emerged from the snow. Since I always tell myself I'll remember and never mark what I planted where, there are always surprises. (I now know I won't remember, but I still enjoy the surprises)!

​I'm looking forward to working in my vegetable garden, eventually! 

The tomatoes have grown a lot since I transplanted them to bigger conatainers. Here they are on my bedroom windowsill...

​The rest of the seedlings are thriving, too. The stocks, nicotiana and phlox are all up now...

And here is where I hope to make yet another flower garden! :) The ground there is so rocky I never considered it before, but it suddenly dawned on me in February how lovey it would look with a garden there! 

I hope you are enjoying your spring gardens as much as I am! :)

The snow is slowly but surely disappearing. I'm really hoping to see some spring bulbs emerging in the next couple weeks. We have seen our first robins and Canada geese this past week!

With the weather being a little warmer, I've been able to leave some of the hardier plants like onions, broccoli and heartsease in the greenhouse overnight, which has freed up some space in the house for more seedlings! So far I've planted Aztec Sweet and Only the Lonely nicotiana, Dwarf 10 Week stocks, and Cherry Caramel phlox. 
The cabbage, broccoli, rhubarb, horehound, lemon balm and petunias all came up about a week ago, but I had a clumsy moment and dropped the cabbage, so that will have to be re-planted. 

The heliotope got moved into individual cups yesterday and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had more than I thought (26 plants)! ​

Vigourous, healthy tomato seedlings are one of the joys of Spring that I cannot be without. I think I would plant a few even if there was no hope of getting any tomatoes to ripen later! They are such pretty plants, and the next best thing to eating a homegrown heirloom tomato, is the wonderful aroma you get on your fingers after gently handling the hairy stems. 

I just transplanted my tomatoes from the 3 ounce cups they were started in, to 8 ounce cups...

Remember to label the new containers if you are growing more than 1 variety, unless you want to be surprised later! Sometimes it's fun to be surprised, but since I'm planning to save seed, I need to know which variety is which before they set fruit. 
Growing a few different varieties of peppers and tomatoes and comparing their germination and growth has been very interesting this spring! For example, all of the Mehmet's Sweet Turkish peppers germinated, while only about 8 out of 15 Ajvarski peppers germinated! (In my experience, it is quite unusual for all the pepper seeds to sprout anyway). I also noticed that the Hungarian Heart tomato was slower to germinate than both the Pantano Romanesco and Black Krim tomatoes, and the plants are smaller and less vigorous. We'll see what happens with yields later on!