It's been quite the year so far! I went to visit Erika and her family in April. It was wonderful to see them all again! The grandkids are growing up so quickly! Teagan is already 11 and Scarlet will be 10 next month. Jameson is 3 and Greyson is 2. They are all doing awesome! Got to see old friends as well! I was hoping I could get back over there this year but it's starting to look unlikely. We're preparing for an ERP system at work and the work is just starting on it. We're hoping to get it up and going by November!
The first of May I went over to see Christina in England. That was a wonderful trip and it's so nice to now be able to picture where she is living! We stayed in London the first day and took a 5 hour walking tour, then headed out of town since that weekend was the coronation of King Charles. We went up to Cambridge and then over to the base Christina lives on. Then the next day we went over to the Lake District and spent a day there, then up to Glasgow and 3 days there. Then back to London and back home. It was awesome to get to go to Sunday morning meeting in the Lake District and then a day of convention outside of Glasgow. It was wonderful to see a couple of workers from Oregon there!
I started a bunch of tomatoes, peppers and herbs from seed this year hoping to sell them but they weren't ready soon enough. A lot of other people seem to have the same idea so I ended up with A LOT of them planted around the yard! They got in a bit late but that worked since we had a late frost (third week of June). Between reseeding and starting by seed I barely spent anything in actual plants this year! That was a big win!! It was a long cool Spring and then summer was suddenly here and the peppers finally started growing! I also got three garden boxes from my neighbor. He does an awesome job building them!! And cattle panels in between them so I can grow up and over the boxes. I'm pretty excited to do that! This next week my plan is to plant peas and have them grow up them this fall. Hopefully they'll do well and I can get enough to freeze! Tomatoes, onions, watermelon, carrots, beans (pole and bush), potatoes, watermelon, swiss chard, kale, squash and peas are in the garden this year. Between being gone 10 days to England and a good couple of weeks getting the boxes ready I have been behind this year and trying to play catch up in the garden this last month. We did have a bad hail storm the end of May the wrecked havoc. Thankfully we got the marble sized hail and not the golf ball sized hail. That was several miles away and did a lot of damage. Between that and the late frost the third week of June my procrastination paid off with the garden!
Thinned carrots all cooked up. Oil, oregano dried from garden and salt.
Thinned carrots
First true multi vegetable harvest
Last of the lilies to bloom this year. There are quite a few pictures of the different ones.
Sunshine blue tomatoes
Potato patch
Sunset
Peppers are starting to set!
Cool moth!!
Sooo much carrot seed!
Starting to harvest onions
Early Cascade Tomatoes
Dragon tongue beans- these are the BEST!!!
Watermelons growing by the day!! Now hoping for a decent fall so they can ripen!
Sunset
Cool looking clouds
Looking back to the strawberry and asparagus patch
Beans and calendula flowers
Potatoes etc
My carrot bed that is all reseeded carrots! A lot of the above thinned carrots came from here.
Tomatoes for the most part amongst the carrots and onions
Onions on right
Tomatoes, watermelon
Purple potatoes
Beans, cucumbers, beans
Some nice variations of the petunias this year- self sowed
Marigold
Onion flower
Cosmos
View of yard
Phlox
Carrot seed for next year!
Ukraine Purple tomato
So many dragonflies this year!!!
Lily
Lily
Can kind of see the cattle panels!
This Walla Walla onion is a nice size!
Milbert's Tortoiseshell butterfly
The newest flower bed
Daylily
Moth getting nectar from the daylily
Dayliles
Snapdragons and Chamomile
Snapdragons and Chamomile
New bed area
Daylily
Lily
Lily
Another new bed area!
New bed area!
Second harvest of garlic- 210 heads of garlic when all was said and done
Peppers are in
Self sowed petunias
Lilies
Sunset
Only a few blueberries this year!
Hard to see here but there's a lily start growing
Delphinium
Perennial Salvia
Poppy
Poppy
Lilies
First harvest of garlic
My largest garlic head
Potatoes are up!
Starting to grow
Onions
Bachelor buttons
Sun rise
Storm clouds
What was used to fill the beds
The garden beds
The help I had filling the garden boxes! The farms S. African H2A helped me!
Stuff from compost pile on to of yard debris
Late frost! (Third week of June)
Yard debris on top of logs
Starting to fill the new garden boxes- logs first
Onion bed on right and watermelon bed on left
Where most the peppers went.
Purple potato bed
Late planted pea bed on right and tomatoes on left
Yum!!!!
Watermelon are on the left and far left is the garlic
Peppers!
Hardening off plant starts
Plant starts, so many plant starts!
Bark is laid!
Progress on the new bed.
The start of the new bed.
Potatoes, beans and carrots going in!
We had so many thunderstorms this year!
Hail damage. These lost a lot of blooms but left a lot too!
Onions going in! The established ones here are the bigger onions further up. They wintered over.
Iris's- These ones seem to more or less escape the hail damage
Start of the garden
Start of the garden
Rainbow!!
Daffodil
Raspberries were barely leafing out so they weren't damaged too badly
Lost all my honeyberries- and they were loaded. :(
Could tell which way it came from with these lilies. Luckily the buds didn't get damaged!
The rhubarb came back quite well eventually but those shredded leaves!
Saved the lettuce!
Crazy amount of hail
Incoming to the above storm pictures
Incoming to the above storm pictures
The lilac blooms were amazing this year!
Interesting cloud formation
Cool fountain!
The unicorn-Glasgow
Glasgow
Sterling Castle
Sterling Castle
Sterling Castle
Sterling Castle
Sterling Castle
Sterling Castle
Sterling Castle
Sterling Castle
Sterling Castle
So cool looking!!
We saw various Lochs on our tour
It was so very green!
A castle
View from the boat trip around the Loch
This little boy was having so much fun!
Convention near Glasgow
Along the road at the convention close to Glasgow
Lake District
There was this cool house at the gardens- side view
There was this cool house at the gardens- front view
Botanical Gardens in the Lake District
Botanical Gardens in the Lake District
Botanical Gardens in the Lake District
View from where Sunday morning meeting was in the Lake District
Those double windows were where Christina and I stayed in the Lake District.
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Old cemetery across from where we stayed in the Lake District
The Lake District
The Lake District
There were lots of these rock walls
Our Airbnb close to Cambridge
The start of football (soccer)
There were a lot of bikes around Cambridge
Overview of Cambridge
Over view of Cambridge
Love this one!
The total steps after walking for 5 hours around London!
Resting after a lot of walking!!
Plays are done in this building
Subway station
Big Ben and West Minister
I think this is Princess Anne's home. If not her one of them lives here!!
The first one with King Charles stamp.
The first one with King Charles stamp.
Buckingham Palace. This was as close as we could get due to the coronation prep.
Had to get the telephone box picture!
The transit station we used
Double decker bus
The before!
Early Spring
They bloomed before I left for England!
Daffodils
Potatoes going in! This was the end of April and about 3 weeks late due to weather.
Scarlet
Erika & Greyson
Teagan
Scarlet & Greyson
Greyson & Jameson
Love the sunsets
Early April Snow fall
March snow fall!
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