Back in the Garden(s)

As usual, I am already about 3 weeks behind on the garden. This time, however, it can mostly be blamed on the weather, which has been unrelentingly cold and rainy. At least on the days when I had the time to be outside. Thankfully, yesterday was sunny and 60 degrees, and since it was Wednesday, I wasn't working. So I went back out to the garden. Well, gardens, really. Yay!

I started by planting new herbs (rosemary, lavender, dill, and lemon thyme) in the herb patch I started last year by the back door. All of those are perennials, and I should have still had them from last year, but the brutal winter killed off everything except the chives and the chocolate mint. Still, I was pretty happy when it was done, and I pulled my Mickie Mueller magical cat flag out of the mudroom an "planted" it too.

Then I moved on to the main garden, where I finally got peas and onions into the ground.

 If you look really closely at the picture above, you can see the tiny green shoots of the onion plants. Of course, the peas below just look like an empty bed. But I know it's not!

That's one of the things about gardening that reminds me of writing. In the beginning, a garden is all about potential and hope. You put the seeds in the ground, and they don't look like much. Hell, to anyone other than you, they don't look like anything. But if all goes well, four or five months down the road, you will have a bounty of vegetables (or words) to reap. And maybe even share with others.

Speaking of others, I had some company out in the garden. The goldfish in the little pond are feeling perky (and got even more agitated when I started cleaning the pond and stirred things up).

 I also had a garter snake hanging out by the pond. (Did you know snakes can swim? Yes they can.) I'm not a big snake person (they still make me jump if I come across them unexpectedly) but garter snakes are actually very useful in the garden and outside, keeping down small pests and loosening the soil. 
[Look away if you don't like snakes!]

I was out there for about 2 1/2 hours (which is as long as I can manage without falling over) and feel like I got a reasonable amount accomplished. Now I'm only two weeks behind :-)