Garden Update, Late April, 2022

4/26/2022

April has zoomed by! The days have slipped through my fingers like sand.

It's early yet, but we are really enjoying our garden.

Due to our home's damage wrought by harsh weather in 2021, we did not host our family’s Easter celebration last year. This year we were back and we wanted everything to be ready.

The biggest improvement to our back garden was the rebuilding and enlarging of our raised beds. Joseph worked nights and weekends to finish them in time. And then we had seven yards of excellent soil delivered.

When we lived on acreage, we had a trailer and could haul soil wherever we wanted. Here, on our tiny dot of property, even a wheelbarrow can be too big. I have a sturdy gardening wagon and my clever husband fashioned a cart that could hold several plastic containers. We considered hiring help to transport the soil from driveway to back garden, but one fine weekend – the weather was gloriously cool and sunny – we opted to do it ourselves.

I have to say, it felt great.

Comically, I decided sort of last minute -- way too late to be ready for Easter -- to try growing vegetables and some flowers by seed. I don’t even know how much I’ve spent on annuals through the years, but it’s certainly in the thousands. I've always felt a bit silly and guilty about it. This year, to increase my angst, I could not find the bedding plants I was looking for in time for the holiday. It was slim pickings indeed. Something in me snapped.

“You’re a gardener! Grow your own plants!”

Obviously, sections of colorful annuals don't grow from seed overnight or even in a couple of weeks. But I was determined to not buy flats of flowerless plants. We would just have to get by.

That’s not to say that I didn’t go to nurseries near and far. I did, and insofar as trees and shrubs go, I did just fine. We now have two elderberry bushes/trees. I’m so excited! We’re going to have to keep them as shrub-like as possible. I'm really hoping that's possible. They are looking quite exuberant! We also have a new grapevine, one persimmon, one pomegranate, and a baby jujube.

Flowers, in the meantime, are enjoying the relatively mild weather as much as we are. Some of them will be "giant plants" by late July while the roses will be in survival mode. But for now, everything looks happy and fresh.