Bring on the flowers

It’s here. It’s here! Yes, yes, unofficially, summer is here, but officially – definitely officially – the growing season is here. Ahhhhhhh. Thank you Mother Nature.

It was looking a little rough there for a while, namely from January 27^th through mid-April, but it is really here, and we are celebrating with flowers. Flowers in the ground, flowers in pots, flowers in hanging baskets. Please, please, more flowers. Bring on the flowers.

Don’t get me wrong, the vegetable garden is of utmost importance here, of course it is – but after so much white and gray and blah and cold for so many weeks, the prospect of purples and pinks and yellows – and allllll of the colors – is just so completely, totally, all-consumingly alluring.

In fact, the flowers might be the very things that are keeping me from being distraught over the terrible state of our fruit trees. Our apples and peaches were attacked by those seemingly omnipresent green caterpillars while we were away on vacation, our blueberries were gnawed by deer, only our cherry tree appears to have survived. Fortunately, we love cherries. Gotta look at the bright side when the winter moths and deer try to bring you down.

Or, look at flowers. So we’re (clearly) focused on flowers, as well as the still-prolific asparagus bed (at least some of our permaculture is in good shape!), working on a front porch facelift (that chipped paint in the photo above is already gone) that will only make the flowers hanging there look more gorgeous (if this is even possible), all while enjoying the memories of a flower- and garden-filled vacation in Italy (more on this later, plus a bit on food and wine consumed while away as well – always happy to talk about Italian food and wine over here!).

I hope that your growing season is off to a great start, and that you aren’t letting any winter moths, or deer – or whatever your garden nemesis is – get you down!