My June garden

Since we're doing a Four Season Garden contest, I've been showing off my edible garden every month, and I figured I better post June's entry before June got away from me altogether!

June has been mostly hot and humid after all the rain in May, although we did get some rain earlier in the month. My front walk looks quite lush these days, although the whole yard needs a bit of weeding.

The daylilies around the weeping mulberry (aka the "crazy tree") are in bloom, and the kale are doing quite well also.

As you go back towards the house, you see some volunteer kale from the seeds left earlier in the year! I'm really happy about this, because it tells me I'm on the right track here. I would love for my edible plants to naturalize in this garden plot.

My lavender, which had been struggling with all the dampness, is doing much better now that I propped its branches up away from the ground and pulled out all the wet leaves underneath it.

So that's my June garden! If you'd like to share yours, you have today and tomorrow to do so. Just click here to enter!

My May garden

Well, the garden doesn't actually look that bad, considering I was out of town for three weeks and it has apparently been raining almost every day this month. I was able to get these pictures done before it started pouring again.

On one of the few sunny days last week I was able to get some weeding done around the weeping mulberry ... so you can see my kale and daylilies there.

My one hosta which has survived the depredations of the neighborhood cottontail rabbits really enjoys the wet shade under the weeping mulberry.

My ornamental alliums by the mailbox came up! This one is the nicest one, the other one looks sort of unhappy. But I'm just glad to see it :D

I had decided to throw a bunch of lettuce greens in this pot along with some onions. They seem to be the happiest of all my plants, maybe because of the improved drainage.

The dewberries are doing great! Right on time for picking next month.

So that's my front edible May garden. If you'd like to share your garden, come on by!

My edible April garden

Guess what today is, edible landscape artists! The day I show you my April garden. ;)

Our multi-year drought has to be over by now; we've had rain two to three times a week for several weeks now. Which is great for growing!

I am doing much better this year on keeping the weeds down -- I'm going out and pulling weeds every day that we aren't having active thunderstorms.

I also mulched around the ornamental alliums and daylilies by the mailbox (which are beginning to form buds) and put in those pansies which had been languishing in my garage all winter.

My spring greens are doing very nicely.

Lettuce (Lactuca sativa)

The honeyberry bushes are also growing well.

Honeyberry (Lonicera caerulea)

I have lots of garlic coming up, and the kale and blackberries have been in bloom for the past couple of weeks. And of course, my strawberry plants are doing fine -- they are just beginning to bud. You see what kind of soil I have -- it rained two days before and it's cracking already.

Strawberry (left) and spinach (center)

Trifoliate orange (Poncirus trifoliata)

My trifoliate orange is making tiny fruits, lots of them!

Speaking of these, I tried making wine from the ripe ones last fall, and it turned out very well -- dry and tangy.

It's getting better the longer I let it sit. I've tried making vinegar, too, but it's stubbornly refusing to turn, even when I put in some mother from my apple cider vinegar (which usually does the trick)!


And the first rosebuds of the year are here! :D

In the back yard, I've planted potatoes again, thwarting the rascals who dig up and eat my potatoes every time I try to plant them by putting them in a cage. They seem to like being in there. :D

I add dirt as they grow, and I'll put more potatoesover in that bare spot as I get more to plant.

I usually plant the eyes off of any of my store bought organic potatoes which begin to sprout, which seems to happen soon after I get them home.

(I have been known to buy bags of potatoes in the grocery store which are already sprouting for this exact purpose, and they do just fine!)

My cherry tree seems to be doing fine, although I don't see any cherries forming. It's supposed to be self-pollinating, so I'm not exactly sure what's going on. But I did read that it would make fruit "in 2-4 years, and I planted it two years ago, so it might just be too small still. I've planted onions and garlic all around it, among other things.

My grapevines, which I thought were dead, have perked up nicely. My mulberry tree has as well (I thought for sure it was dead, as it did nothing last year, not even a leaf!)

Want to show off your April garden? Stop by our April contest page or learn more about the Four Season Garden contest here.

My March garden

Since I'm doing the Four Season Garden contest this year, I'm showing off my garden here in central Oklahoma through the seasons. Here is my March garden!

It was a beautiful day yesterday (and is looking to be one again today!) My husband and daughter are standing on the front porch talking (and probably wondering why I'm across the street taking pictures!)

It tickles me that my yard is greening up, while my neighbors on all sides (who spray, mow, water, and all that) still have brown dormant yards. :)

My honeyberry plants are leafing out nicely!

Honeyberry (Lonicera caerulea)

My daffodils (not edible) out at the street and by my front walk are blooming, and here you can see not only my frostbitten kale, but also some garlic to the lower left and my saffron crocus to the upper left. There's what looks like a bit of lettuce there to the lower right.

Here are a couple more lettuces, by one of my brick "path stones"

Over by my weeping mulberry, my daylilies and strawberries are peeking out:

Want to show off your March garden? There's only a few days left! Visit my March garden page here to share your March edible garden photos.

My edible February garden

The weather was beautiful and warm this weekend (65F/18C), so I thought I might show you my February garden (seeing as I'm running this year round garden contest)

Even though they are most certainly NOT edible, I always love it when my daffodils begin popping up:

You can see a few lettuces that I planted last month beginning to show themselves, along with a purple peacock kale (edible).

Here are a few more lettuces, a wild garlic (to the left) and some assorted weeds (yes, weeds in February!) ...

My honeyberry bushes (Lonicera caerulea) are beginning to leaf out:

And I do have a part of my front yard which isn't either eaten to the ground or wilted from the cold:

There's a pak choi, a couple of red yuccas (not true yuccas and not edible), a row of purple kale (quite edible!), my rose bush, and some other assorted edible greens. The greenery in front of the edging is henbit (Lamium amplexicaule), which is also edible, although considered a weed around here. It has pretty purple flowers in the spring.

Something has been eating my saffron crocuses (whose stamens give you the spice saffron -- these bloom in the fall), but they seem to be happy enough where I've transplanted them.

In the back yard, it's pretty bleak, other than a few early spring weeds here and there, so I'll show you my angora rabbit Shadow, who was happy to get out of her cage and munch on some grass for a change:

Of course, today it's snowing!

I would love to see your February edible gardens! If you'd like to enter my February garden contest, click here.

My garden in January ...

Hello, edible landscape artists!

Since I'm doing a year-round edible gardens contest this year, I thought I might show off my own garden in January to get things started.

Two kinds of kale

There's not really any such thing as "usual" weather here in central Oklahoma -- any sort of weather is possible, sometimes more than one kind in any single week. But it's nice that it's gotten above freezing this week, which gives me some kind of incentive to go outside and take pictures :)

Lavender and kale

As you might expect, things are a bit scraggly -- in the front yard, my garlic plants around the pond, while green, sort of look shell-shocked to me.

Wild garlic, planted here on purpose ;)

My rosemary is doing as well as can be expected after last winter's terrible hot/cold/hot/cold run, which killed several of my hedge plants, and is probably grateful for the more even temperatures this year.

Rosemary hedge

The rest of my plants are doing about as they usually do, although it looks as if something has been eating some of my kale!

A rascal is somewhere nearby ...

 I had to brush away the leaves from my strawberry plants, but you can see that they are doing just fine and this particular one is making flowers! (which I couldn't get a good photo of ...)

Strawberry plant (which loves all zones)

In my back yard, my tea plant (Camellia sinesis) is doing just fine underneath its row cover.

Row cover is great stuff for tender plants or first winters

And it looks as if my cherry tree may be getting ready to bud!

Hopefully we won't have a blizzard next week ... you never know here.

So this is what my garden looks like in January ... if you'd like to share yours just hop over to my Garden in January contest. You'll be glad you did! :)

We got a white Christmas after all ...

... if a few days late!

Here's what I woke up to this morning:

Hope all of you are having a wonderful holiday. :)