Behold the handmaid of the Lord.
Just back from Mass and lunch, piddling around the garden before taking Dora for a belated walk. Some spring garden sights:
Blackberries trained on the fence and putting out new growth.
Lemon thyme, creeping phlox, and looks like obedient plant coming up in the thyme. I should probably move it.
Oregano, spreading and flourishing from a little sprig I planted last year. I'll probably just have herbs around the stump this year --- last year I had zinnias and cosmos, which pretty much drowned the oregano and chives. Chives have rallied, here's the oregano, a little bee balm is growing in the same bed (which means that eventually it'll be all bee balm). Lavender and sage are coming back from the dead. I need to think what other herbs I'd like to put in, both in the stump garden and in containers: cooking herbs, but also things like chamonile for tea. I think this year I'm going to put flowers outside this garden: dig up a bed along the fence bordering the shade garden to plant zinnias, etc. I can plant sunflowers, both regular and Mexican, by the kitchen-garden fence, around the corner from the blueberries.
I plan to put tomatoes in the ground this year, instead of in containers, along the inside of the fence, where I can tie them up. Basil and marigolds in a row in front of them. Peppers and eggplant in containers. Pole beans on one fence, maybe on either side of the grapevine, since it's not that big yet.
It's warm and sunny today, so the summer garden is on my mind. Right now all I really have are minimal greens:
Spinach (which is nice and healthy) plus garden sorrel which really isn't big enough to pick yet.
Spent some time yesterday bottling one batch of flower wine and making some more.
Here's the batch that I made with violets, redbud, and some dandelion:
I strained out a lot of yeast sediment, but there's still some in there, so the wine looks pretty cloudy today. I also topped off each bottle with some simple syrup.
New batch of dandelion wine, since I finally had enough dandelion flowers to make some:
Very fizzy and yeasty still.
And here's the straight redbud wine which is still fermenting away, covered, on the study mantel:
God willing, we'll have lovely pinks and yellows to serve in 2025!
Wearing today for the feast day, leaving off my Lenten purple:
Fiona, fairly underworn this month, but great for a warm day. I really like her just as she comes, with bare legs and sandals. This past week I threw her in the wash with my Maggie dress, on hot (I know, living dangerously), and dried them in the dryer. I did wash that load in sulfate-free shampoo, so as not to strip out the lanolin. Anyway, both those dresses seem to need shrinking periodically, and I like the fit much better when they have drawn up some. (Also, I think I had thought I wouldn't wash any dresses this month, but that plan really fizzled. It's just easier to wash a whole dress than to spot clean . . . and if I'm doing a load anyway, I don't see any reason not to wash a dress or two, too).
Anyway, Fiona . . . just an easy-peasy dress for a spring day.