Chives, Potatoes and Peppers

A couple of days of rain have really perked up the garden and I ducked out early this morning to see what was blooming. Our lilac bushes are of a later blooming variety and are just now coming out. They smell lovely and I think I'll cut a few blooms off and bring them in.

The potatoes are growing very well. The plant below is a russet potato and these are growing in a slightly raised bed against the south side of the house. The extra heat and perhaps the better soil has helped them along. The russets plants elsewhere are much further behind.

The Shepody potatos in the front yard are a bit behind. This might be a difference in the plants, but I'd guess the cruddier soil and lack of heat bouncing off the house plays its part. That said, all have come up and are nicely leafing out. They ever survived the tarping that I did Friday night when it looks like we might get some snow (which came down south of town).

The chives are flowering. I bought 24 plants one of our first years here to help fill in some bare spots. I was assured by the garden centre and by the tags on the plants that they were an annual. Apparently this was not true and I have been slowly weeding these fellows down to a usable number of plants since then.

They are pretty in bloom, though! With so many chives, I've always let Jess pull whatever she wants and eat them. Not many three-year-olds are big on chives but Jess used to stuff her face. She'll still grab a couple when the mood takes her.

Our pepper plants also seem to be doing well. You can see the start of a bell pepper down low on the stem (left side). I'll need to read up on how many peppers a plant can carry to a decent size. I had no luck with peppers last year but they seem to be doing well in the raised kitchen garden.

Up next: Today we're going to call the spinach crop a write off. Maybe bad seed? Maybe the soil was not rich enough. Anyhow, under it goes and we'll try some lettuce there. There are also a number of dandelions that require the loving attention of my gardening knife.