The Bemilie Blog

It’s 7am, Ben is still sleeping, and I am sitting out on our back deck enjoying a cup of coffee and the sounds of a spring morning. The weather forecast predicted a high in the upper 70s today, something for Portlanders to get excited about and cause to start making plans to be outside all day. It’s still fairly chilly for now but I can’t help but think about the things I’ve been planning to do in our yard all week.

I had ordered some tomato starts to be delivered in the beginning of April, and while I received them at their promised date, they have been relegated to living in our garden window until the weather was more appropriate for putting them in their permanent home outside. In the meantime, I have watched them inch ever higher and waiting impatiently for the day when they will start producing. Luckily I’ve had other things in the garden to be focusing my attention on to abate my “limited tomato based thinking”.

Toward the end of March I planted four Oregon snow pea seeds in the hopes that one would sprout and produce snow peas for us to enjoy through the season. Much to my happy surprise all four sprouted and have been growing ever skyward. Noticing that they were starting to climb on one another I improvised a trellis with a tomato cage that wouldn’t come to use for a little while and strung some gardener’s twine diagonally between the bars to give the peas something else for their little tendrils to wrap around.

Back in September of last year I planted some ranunculus bulbs thinking the picture on the package looked nice and that our front yard could use some extra color. I couldn’t help but be surprised when they started sprouting in November! These brave little sprouts had to bare the full brunt of Arctic Blast ’08, the worst snow storm to hit our area in 40 years. Luckily they soldiered on and when April and warmer temperatures rolled around the continued to grow and produce some beautiful blossoms that we’re still enjoying.

Unfortunately for our back yard, we haven’t been as dutiful to its upkeep as we likely should have and the back corner of our yard which last year was just a layer of bark dust is now covered in a profusion of weeds. I hope to remedy that this weekend.