amen to that smagruder!

I planted garlic last fall... and peas, lettuce and cabbage are in now, also beets and chard. Onions need to go next. Tomato seedlings are on their second set of true leaves. Still to be planted: beans, eggplant, summer squash and peppers. And LOTS of weeding and digging. Our soil here is clay and very wet. Though with four days of long-awaited sunshine, the top is likely hard as a brick now.

I do garden. In fact, this time of year, my quilting takes a back seat to being outside. I went down to Asheville N.C. a week or so ago to their annual herb festival and added a few things to my herb garden--basil, savory, pineapple sage. The beans are sprouting. I'll have new potatoes in a couple of weeks, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, pumpkins. And the flowers, of course. I went out this morning early and everything smelled like honeysuckle. Quilting can wait awhile. Still my favorite way to pass my evenings.

Memorial Day weekend is my planting weekend. I plant petunias. Here in Central Oregon it can get below freezing any day of the year. The frost will kill the flowers on petunias but it will not kill the plant and the flowers come back. I can't plant too much because it just becomes deer food. I do have some hanging baskets on my deck for some color.

Ditto, here in NH. I've tried planting sooner only to have everything killed by frost or drowned by rain. This year we'll be expanding just a bit.

I have mostly mixed beds which contain evergreen shrubs, flowering shrubs and perennials. I have one long bed that is perennials only for color across the front yard. I do not plant annuals, seems a waste of time and $$ to plant every year.
And I do not plant containers, they are too time consuming for me. I plant very few veggies, tomatoes and onions.
For your rocky yard you can plant a rock garden.

Johnny Jump Ups are just tiny violas...they are perennial and edible!

here a links to the two topics I had going on this subject!
HERBS---http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-109886-1.htm
VEGGIES---http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-109873-1.htm

Love gardening. Have finally got everything in except field peas and some melons. I can 600 to 700 jars each summer. This is the first year since Hubby died that I've been excited about the garden - not sure I'll do as much canning this year. No fun or need for just one person.

Although weather is still dicey here in the PNW, we had a lovely, sunny, warm afternoon yesterday, and I transplanted the 10 tomato plants and some dill that I bought last Sat. at the Seattle Tilth plant sale. I have two 3x6 foot raised beds and four 3x3 raised beds. I also bought one of those topsy-turvy "tomato trees" last year at the end of the season (for 50% off) and put that together yesterday. It's supposed to hold up to 3 tomato plants, but I put in only 2. I also planted two kinds of garlic last fall, and they are coming up well. Some mixed colorful lettuce and radishes sprouting, plus the potatoes (Red Norland and German Butterball) are coming up. I'll put green beans in one of the 3x3 beds and two yellow crookneck squash in the other two. My little fig tree (on its 3rd year) is budding out, and I have mini cantaloupes and more lettuce sprouting inside.
We just realized this week that one of this year's litter of bunnies has taken up residence in our backyard, which is driving our lab mix nuts and making me nervous for my veggies. Bad choice bunny! I scold him while he hides inside the woodpile. He has an escape hole under the back fence, and we're hoping to block him from coming back in that way.