Hyacinth is opening up this week. I have a variety of the wild forms. This seems much deeper blue than I remember last season. I planted these a few years ago. I am partial to purple and blue any time of the season. This is  Centaurea  Montana/ Mountain Cornflower.

I love  how these plants unfold slowly.....

 They have such a beautiful appearance  in all stages of their flower development...

they just float in the garden....

I do get distracted often by all the beautiful spring flowers blooming in Palm Rae Potager. 

This is the fence we share with my neighbor on the north side. I  use a 3 year rotation since we only have 3 areas with 6+ hours of sun a day. Last year the squash was in this garden

and  traveled into our neighbors yard. I tell them every year they are welcome to pick what grows on their side of the fence. By the end of the summer, the vegetables I grow vertically in this South facing garden do travel and produce an abundant crop to share with my fence neighbors!

We purchased second hand bricks to use for our raised beds. Some people claim bricks attract snails, but  I have not had any problems with snails. We also have some old bricks that the former owner of our home collected from some old buildings they tore down. 

This year we will be growing Blue Lake,  Rattle Snake,
and French Climbing Pole Beans, and Dragon Bush Beans. We want to try different pole beans every year. By the end of summer, they will be wandering into our neighbors yard and all over their bushes. We do try to keep them on our side, but it is difficult to do at times. They don't mind the extra food!
We only grow Dragon Bush Beans since they are the best tasting bush bean we have tried. The Dragon Bush beans are in front of the pole and by the time the pole beans are ready to eat our dragon bush beans are finished. We will plant a second batch of bush beans mid summer once we harvest the garlic.

The Jacob Cline Red Bee Balm will be blooming soon. Mr. Mugwort is anxious to see the red bee balm!

Antirrhinum Majus or Snapdragons

These snapdragons were started this winter inside. The seed was extremely tiny, and it took a LONG time for them to reach the size of a pin head. This was my first year to grow snapdragons. I selected Black Prince, which is an heirloom ( circa 1915) grown in Thomas Jefferson's Monticello Gardens. I ordered the seed ( Select Seeds) last fall and decided to give some snap dragons a try for the first time this year. This is the end of April, and they have been ouside since the first week of March. I would say they are about 6 inches and growing quickly now that they are settled into their permanent home.

I grew cilantro in containers this year and find it is doing better. It is in an area where it will receive some afternoon shade. I did not want it to bolt this year too soon. We have been using it a lot this spring in our

taco salads.

We tried a new red romaine lettuce that I sow densely. I will replace the lettuce area with squash as soon as it warms up in May. This makes a fabulous cut and come again lettuce.

The pansy I started from seed in January is starting to bloom this week.

Johnny Jump Ups are blooming. They are flavorful in our salads this spring!

They are so delicate, and I noticed they have slight difference in their petals....

Baptisia Carolina is starting to bloom.....a spring joy

The butterflies are enjoying the purple allium...one landed on my shoulder as I worked today....

.........

Viola Angel Amber Kiss is blooming!

 These were started January 18th from seed. 

French Breakfast Radishes are growing well. I put them where the squash will be planted in May. This area receives full sun during the summer and the radishes do not like hot weather!

I've been amending my soil for the past few years, and my root crops are doing better!

French Breakfast Radish salad includes baby Kale, Red Lettuce, and  radish green tops. I  read somewhere that the greens of radishes are even more nutritious than the roots.

I tucked arugula in between Swiss Chard for spring salads. I put fresh dirt down for Malabar spinach which will climb up the trellis all summer.I soaked the seeds over night. They produced a pretty red color dye. 

I dyed some paper. It provides a natural dye that you can grow in your garden. 

Growing from seed....

Angel Amber Kiss Viola Bud

This year, I am growing most of  our flowers, vegetables and herbs from seed. I hardened off the pansy, stock, and cole crops in March. They have been out in the garden for at least 4 weeks. The Swiss Giant and Historical Pansies are not blooming yet, but I noticed the other day the Angel Amber Kiss Viola were budding.

I'm hardening off my second batch of plants for Palm Rae Potager this week. 

Flowers, herbs, and vegetables seedlings are almost ready to be put in the ground. They have about one more week of hardening off.

 I want to be careful and make sure we are not going to have another freeze. We had some close nights around 29 degrees, but they were sheltered, and I brought most of them inside.

Elephant ear and Canna bulbs from last season are cut off in the fall after a freeze and stored downstairs. I placed them in dirt towards the end of February.  I save recycle used  plastic containrs to set them in, or old boxes that I can compost back into the garden.

I place my abyssinian Banana plants in old containers that I fill with dirt, and they just start growing back from the center. I wrap them in newpapers in the fall. They are placed in the basement, and I take them out with the other bulbs. I will place all my tropical type plants out in a few weeks when it stays above 50 degrees.

Tomato seedlings and ....

pepper seedlings will be hardening off this next week. This year I am only growing Jimmy Nardello Peppers to save seed. I want to isolate the seed from other pepper plants so I can have seed acclimated to our location. The past week I have been watering them every  other day and trying to get them ready for being placed outside.

I started the 3rd group of plants this past week. Some of them were germinating by day 3!

The heirloom daffodils were fun to alter and collage!

I was busy this week creating some interesting combinations with altered flowers:-)

I will have fun this summer, the ideas are just endless....

what a colorful world we live in.........

Flowers grown with spring vegetable greens

One of the joys of having a potager is growing flowers with your vegetables and herbs. I planted heirloom daffodils last fall, they are exceptionally fragrant and bloom later than the other daffodils. They are remarkably dainty and float in water pretty well!

Heirloom Daffodil Cheerfulness  1923

These heirloom daffodils were growing with my lettuce, kale and spring veggies. 

We filled our vases for Easter dinner with lilacs,  heirloom daffodils, and a variety of tulips.

 Heirloom White Thalia Daffodil 1916 

I planted these heirloom white daffodils last fall. They are much smaller than the newer varieties that people plant today. Very delicate and dainty.

I did tuck in a few lilac bushes in our small backyard many years ago.... I do have to keep them trimmed so they do not  get too tall, but oh the smell is incredible!

Urban Potager

Spring is here when the Lilac bushes fill the potager with fragrance!

I've been researching the concept of a potager in a city lot for the past few years. I thought the concept of a potager would be a great idea since it is mixing vegetables, herbs and flowers together to be used in the home for daily use. Many of us do not have a perfect shaped lawn( square/rectangle), they are not level, full sun all day is limited, and have to  include a place to entertain.

Jacob Cline Bee Balm + Daylily embrace a bed of  endive which was planted last fall and we are eating now!

Separating a potager  from the main garden on a small city lot or enclosing  it with a picket fence is usually not possible. Also the use of shrubs to enclose each garden bed is not a good use of space.I see many people associate the formal parterre garden as the traditional potager garden design. From my research, I have discovered that a potager can be informal and formal. I often see the parterre garden described as the potager garden. There is a distinct difference between a parterre garden and a potager garden. The parterre is a formal landscaping that uses patterns/ shrub borders. Here, is a source for the the parterre garden.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parterre
The Parteere garden would be too difficult to utilize in most small urban spaces. I feel an informal urban potager might be better designed as an informal potager that does not have symmetrical patterns. We can use patterns, but they will be asymmetrical due to our space. We also have to rotate in our small space, so it needs to be informal to adapt to change each growing season. If you are fortunate to have a large outdoor area that is symmetrical than you can try the symmetrical design. My yard is very irregular, and it would be too difficult to undertake a formal potager with precise geometric designs. So my urban potager is informal but incorporates vegetables, flowers and herbs in interesting patterns, which are most often asymmetrical.

Beds of spring lettuce.....

The Potager Garden is perfect for small city lots since it is a mix of flowers, herbs and vegetables that add beauty to the garden as well as provide for the home. The choices are up to the individual owner. Therefore, each garden is living art to enjoy each day.

Spring daffodils are clearing way for raspberry bushes and kale...

The individual tastes of the owner will determine which flowers, herbs and vegetables will be used.  The main issues of the small city lot Potager are with the rotation of crops,succession/biointensive planting methods, selection of  flowers for beneficial insects,space to compost, how to arrange everything and which food producing  perennials to include in city potager.

Spring Blueberry blossoms....

My plan the next two years are to continue researching vegetables, herbs and annual flowers that will be collected each season to make Palm Rae Potager sustainable.

Tulips dancing in front of a raised bed of Chicory which were planted last fall....

Welcome to the strawberry patch spring 2012...

color everywhere in Palm Rae Potager ...pink...

red lettuce...

and my favorite of all...PURPLE!

The different plants we select are those that we love for taste, beauty and enjoy growing in our zone 5 garden.