What's Up Wednesdays

Happy Wednesday, everyone!  It's been a while, hasn't it?  I was technically supposed to get back into blogging and designing a month ago after taking a short hiatus, but it just stretched out and kept going.  I was kind of waiting for life to slow down a bit so that I had a little breathing room to work, but I think it ended up going faster rather than slower.

So what's keeping me so busy?  It's finally spring here in western NY!  Gardening in a cold northern area has its special challenges, chiefly that in order to have a productive gardening season, we need to get things in the ground as soon as we can.  So I end up having precious few days when it's both early enough and warm enough to get my garden prepped for the year to come, and I end up working my rear off for a frantic month or so getting ready for warmer weather. 

The good news is that the frantic part of gardening season is pretty much over for me!  The bad news is that it's finally warm enough to get some home improvement projects done, so now I'm out there working on that as well as whatever gardening things need done.  Sometimes it feels like it's a ridiculous cycle of work, but it also feels rewarding to see my home and my garden looking so neat and well kept, not to mention eating those lovely home grown veggies!

There's not a lot growing in the garden yet, just some tiny seedlings and a few small cabbage plants.  In a couple of months it will look like a jungle though!

The peppers and tomatoes I started from seed are so big and bushy!  I think I planted a record number of both of them this year; 21 tomatoes and 12 peppers. 

My mom and I went to an Amish greenhouse today and I picked up the impatiens and coleus for my shady porch pots.

My front porch is the perfect place to harden off my plants because it's nice and shady with just a little sun on the south side.

My flower garden doesn't look like much at the moment.  Everything is just waking up and getting growing big lovely leaves, but it will be full of blooms in a couple of weeks. 

My strawberry bed is just starting to get some open flowers!

And my apple tree is starting to bloom, too!

The forget-me-nots are beautiful, as always.  They may be a nuisance sometimes, but they're so cheery and such a sweet little flower.

This is the front on the house about a week ago, when the rhododendron was still in bloom and I still had a couple of daffodils out. 

I hope you enjoyed looking through my spring garden.  Hopefully I'll have something more interesting  to show soon.  I hope you all have a great week, and look for some updates on my design business in the next couple of days.