Spring is here and we are far, far behind!

We have been watching as the yard is coming back to life.  Last year at this time our yard was pretty much non-existent.  We had yet to move the fence back to enclose all our property, plant the grass, and get our garden started.  So compared to last year, we are way ahead of the game.  But we still have quite a bit of work to do.

We are excited that this year we will be able to reap the benefits of our garden.  Last year we were working to establish our fruit trees and berries so we removed most the flowers to encourage vegetative growth :o(  So now that the plants are a bit stronger we get to eat fruit from OUR OWN GARDEN!!!

And here is our peach tree with blossoms! 

And here is a picture of our apricot tree, already past the blossom stage and starting to leaf out.

A cool thing about the fruit trees we planted are that they were grafted on a dwarf rootstocks so we won't be overwhelmed with pruning and too much fruit (though I doubt this last part!) AND there are three different varieties on each tree that produce at different times so we will have an extended peach and apricot enjoyment season.........Yippee!
Now we just have to sit back and wait.

And did I mention our berries?!  We are hoping to have a crop of raspberries, two varieties of red and a golden variety, blackberries, boysenberries, two different varieties of blueberries and last but not least strawberries.  We had a short season of strawberries last year as we were a little late at getting them in the ground.  The strawberries we did have were wonderful, super sweet, a bit on the small size but they packed a flavorful punch.  And we did get to enjoy some red raspberries last year too.

Here's a picture of our golden raspberry sending up new shoots.  We have to keep this guy under control because I've heard raspberries can get a bit out of hand.  We dug out our beds and buried the sideboards about a foot into the ground to try to contain the vines to the planters.   We will see how that works.  I've already had to pull out a few escapees from the red raspberries that broke free over the planter box wall.

So the state of a garden (and whole yard) is a bit of a weed patch.  As it's been raining a lot lately and we have been traveling almost every weekend we haven't had any time to work in the yard.........and it shows!

I am embarrassed to show the state of our yard but here it is :o(  I'm leaving out the pictures of the flower beds where the weeds are a couple feet tall!

 

Atleast it's green, right?

The last two days have been nice and sunny so after work I pulled some weeds and mowed down some to get the garden looking a bit better..........and so I can start planning what to plant in our other beds :o)

(That big funky looking plant in the far bed is an artichoke, it didn't produce last year but maybe this year.........let's keep our fingers crossed.)

Overall we are at a much better starting point than last year so I'm excited to get out and working in the yard again.  So hopefully we get a few more sunny days!