Memorial Day weekend marks the beginning of gardening season. With local nursery plants planted and catalog seeds sown, we have officially started our Summer of 2008 Garden.
The fern garden is already underway, with ferns having spread across much of the garden to places where there were none last year. This corner was covered with sunflowers last year, which may have provided enough shade for the ferns to take cover. We will see whether they thrive through summer's sunshine or give way to other perennials.
The vegetable bed shows signs of our harvested asparagus, the treat of May, and an early crop of greens that were hidden in a cold frame until this weekend. (Shortly after taking this photo, our backyard rabbit started to make a meal of lettuce, calling for the frame again until we fence in the garden. The new strawberry bed is fenced behind the vegetable bed.)
The rhubarb (foreground) seems plentiful so far, while the black currants are already flowering. Although the red currant bush needed pruning this year, a deer did the job for us but left us with a foot-high bush. No red currants this year.
These flowering crab apples in my neighbor's yard are just a few of the flowering trees we have been enjoying this spring.
These three are ample pollinators for our Sweet Sixteen apple tree that is also flowering this week.
So we have had a good start to gardening this weekend, and as always, we start the season optimistic about our future harvest. We do see, though, that two rabbits in the yard will present the greatest challenge for us near-term.
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