Simple Pleasures of Spring

It's spring, late April, and that means that it's time for this household to spend more time outside. This year, we're expanding our veggie garden a good bit, adding a new plot of about 10 by 60 feet, and enclosing both the new section and our existing raised beds with fencing. Hopefully, we can keep the hungry critters out of the garden area. We've redone a plot on the southern side of the house that will be the new home for tomatoes, onions and basil. An old section of purple cone-flowers has been moved to a plot right next to the house and all of the beds have been mulched recently, thanks to my generous neighbor. Potatoes and peas have been planted in the old raised beds, so we're looking for a prosperous growing season.

In the front yard, the Bleeding Heart came up bigger and stronger than ever, not bad at all for a plant that I've had for more than a dozen years and that has been transplanted at least three times!

All of the strawberry plants are doing well and both the cherry tree and the apple have lots of blossoms, so that would appear to be a good sign. The apple tree is a Red Delicious that finally set fruit for the first time last year; I had almost given up on it, since I think we've had it for at least five years now. The first apples off the tree were rather mishapen and small, but the later ones looked pretty nice and tasted fine!