I feel like my whole weekend has been a celebration of Mother's Day, because we've had so many fun things to do. Adam had a performance yesterday at the Conservatory, which was wonderful, and we all had a delicious dinner at my mom's house afterwards. Today we got to enjoy brunch at a French place in Berkeley and then Mom and I visited the Watershed Nursery to stock up on some new plants. I picked out a lot of things for the Woodland Garden, and for the fence that rings our property. Mom got a lot of things for her backyard, which is dominated by California Live Oak trees. Here's a list of what we bought:
Pretty fun, and honestly, the best gift I can imagine - picking out native plants with my mom!
This is going to be a picture heavy post, as I know you want to see the vegetable gardens, and I also have a lot of flowers to show you. I have pretty much completed the switch from winter garden to summer garden; the only thing left to plant is winter squashes, pumpkins, and gourds, and I won't do that for several more weeks. Oh, and sweet potatoes too, I just got my slips started the other day. Anyway, there isn't much yet to see in the veg gardens, as seeds have just been sown, but I'll take you on a virtual tour around the property anyway.
Let's start in front of the house in the Woodland Garden. This is a flower-heavy area, not a lot of food production here, as it's too shady. I did not get my new native plants in yet, but you'll see what's growing now.
Under the pepper tree, you can see all kinds of different native plants, from coral bells to artemesia to cow parsnip to Douglas iris.
close up of some phacelia
this is either a California sunflower or a hairy gumplant, I'll know in a week or so
by the porch you can see scabiosa, erigeron, yarrow, coffee bush, hydrangea
a new-to-me ceanothus, and I like it a lot
From here we can move around to the Understory Garden, which is still fairly new. Every time I'm at a nursery that sells herbs, I buy more to add to these beds, and this is also where the rhubarb is coming up, as well as some annual herbs like cilantro and dill. I think I will put more artichoke plants around this area, in the mulch, next spring.
You can see how different my yard is from my neighbor's yards. You can also see why I got more plants to add in by the fence - it needs filling in.
Penstemon against the fence
Next to the Understory Garden is the South Garden, mostly veg production, though we have blueberry bushes against the house where they get morning sun only (as you can see, today was on the cloudy side). This area has been planted with edamame, collards, orach, pole beans, both slicing and pickling cucumbers, romaine, watermelon, and cantaloupe. Strawberries here are in a pallet wall planter. This area is also home to one of our dedicated pollinator gardens, where I do not add mulch (many native bees nest in the soil) and I add seeds constantly.
Mostly bare at the moment, in a couple of weeks these beds will be filmed with green. You can see the nasturtiums at the back of the cucumber bed, and back there is also the pollinator garden.
California poppies
From there we move East into the Water Feature garden. Our bubbling fountain is repaired, thanks to Tom, and the bees are doing wonderfully. We've had limited asparagus, and I think I may need to add more bare roots next year.
This area is dominated by Chinese Pistache trees, a mock orange tree, ribes (flowering currant) bushes, a manzanita, a toyon, and both nasturtiums and erigeron. There is a small patch of strawberries, and a large patch of asparagus to the right which is often bare. Top bar bee hive too, of course.
bringing in pollen
Then we move up to the North Garden, which is a little ahead of the South Garden because it was planted mostly with seedlings rather than seeds. The tomatoes and peppers are all doing wonderfully, the first planting of corn has started to peep up above the soil, there are still potatoes and garlic to harvest from winter, the shallots are still drying on top of the chicken coop, there is fruit on the peach, apple, and plum trees, the fig is growing up, the hops are starting to reach the top of their trellises, and the pollinator garden we have in this area is resplendent with native clarkias and borage.
Clarkia, farewell-to-spring
a Carpenter bee going in for a landing on a blanket flower (galliardia)
From this area, you move out to our driveway, to the Parking Strip Garden (not the prettiest name, is it?) where we have blackberries, raspberries, various salvias, and a lot of herbs under the Valley Oak tree. This is also where the Little Free Library will be installed, as soon as we get our registration sign.
our neighbor's lemon tree is also leaning over here, quite handy in the wintertime!
We have an intensely busy week coming up, as Kate is performing in the musical Seussical next weekend and this week is full of dress rehearsals, and I'm not sure I'll have much time in the garden - but I am working on a new strip of reclaimed earth between our garage and patio, so I hope to have an update for you about that (and a plan to trellis pumpkins). I am also expecting a shipment of five different kinds of seed potatoes (a pound of each) tomorrow, which I will be planting in extremely large containers. More on that later, as well! Oh, and Dad is making us a new front door! So I hope to have that to show you too.
Hope you're having a wonderful weekend, and getting plenty of time with your mom (or your kids) and maybe even some time outside!