Gardens.

I'm realizing that I have yet to take a picture of our vegetable garden. It's planted, but honestly I have been focusing my efforts elsewhere this year. Here are some highlights. 

1) Bushes for the birds: 
When we moved in, we basically had two long hedges and a large field.  The birds stayed on the hedges.  Now that we have an orchard, I'm delighted how many birds hang out in the trees.  

I thought if this empty corner of the property had some bushes then the birds would circle around our property. I put in 9 quince, 6 azalea and 3 viburnum. All from friends or marketplace. (Thank you!) I still have that big mess of perennials in pots to plant and deal with. Still working on it.

2) Peonies!
I've wanted peonies here for a long, long time.  There's a plant here that has never flowered. I cleared around it and waited. Nothing. I moved it and waited. Nothing. I found all these for 50% to 90% off last year and boom!  Peonies!

3) This blasted rock garden. I tell you, this will be the death of me.  SO MUCH of this has turned to weeds.  We've had such hot summers that most everything on the rock garden has died and basically turned to weeds.  I am not done yet, but have logged SO MANY hours out here.  Hopefull you can see progress here.

Most everything is stuff that I either dug and potted before they mowed the lawn (below) or moved from elsewhere. 

Getting there.  Still a lot to do. 

Other random gems: 

I love growing lettuce around annuals in our out front boxes.  By the time it bolts, the annual will probably fill the bin. This is lettuce I sowed in March in the jugs.  Still eating it now.

The Jerusalem artichokes are everywhere and apparently love the rain we've been getting. We ate some this spring for the first time. They were quite good! 

Sometimes I get this one to help. Don't need a tractor when he has a bike and a rope.

And then sometimes I even get this one to do a thing or two!