Raspberries, goose berries and potatoes

I spent part of this week travelling and left Jess in charge of the garden (mostly watering). Very adorably, she watered every night (even the nights it rained!) and I returned home to lots of growth.

The raspberries are flowering. This is a very prolific but extremely thorny black raspberry plant (wonder if they crossed with with blackberry). The berries are tasty--otherwise I would have killed it long ago, as it is a blood-soaked horror to pick.

Lots of later spring perennials are flowering, including the phlox. And the violets that appears and disappear are tucked in with the onions. I can't bring myself to weed them out. I also had my first beet (thinning) this year, washed off with the hose and eaten while squatting in the front yard.

Jess had a day off on Thursday. We spent some of the morning with a second seeding of carrots (a few bald patches in the front beds) and then I left her to water everything in.

Around the north side, the potatoes have come up. We've never grown anything here (except for raspberries) and I'm happy to have a reason to weed here. I bet we could do beets on the north side next year. The gooseberry plants really grew last year (also thorny bastards to pick) and we may have enough berries to warrant a jamming session.

And we've started the crazy iris season. They time nicely with the end of the tulips. This weekend we have some weeding in the back to do and also some pruning around the old fire pit before company arrives.