Lots of things have been going on in the gardens since last I was here.

Like this. (I will need to post a photo of the yellow iris next time.)




Beautiful baptisia

Today the sky is cloudy and promising rain... but not delivering... yet. At least it is cooler, near 70 instead of in the 90s. Barely above 60 on Sunday for our May festival (not May yet, but it's a weekend and the flowers in bloom are all May flowers).

Chances of rain every day through Thursday. Then 81 again on Friday. Spring is a fickle time here in Kansas.
But spring progresses into summer. The progression is anything but smooth, yet I planted beans yesterday.

The tomatoes, peppers and eggplants will get into the ground soon. They have to. The peppers are rapidly approaching full size, even in their 3-inch pots. And they are blooming... as peppers are wont to do when their roots get cramped or you finally put them in the ground.



Baby peaches

Last night I started putting compost on the tomato and pepper beds -- and I planted cucumber seeds. Three hills should fulfill our salad needs, then some.

We have spent much time working with our orchard areas, laying chipped wood mulch and expanding the cages to accomodate their mature limb spread. The apricot still has a few fruit left on it, in spite of all of the strong winds in recent days. And one of the peach trees is bearing little peaches.

The blueberry bushes are blooming.



Honeysuckle

And some of them are berrying. The scent of honeysuckle sometimes overwhelms the scent of the old fashioned purple iris pictured above, while bees and dozens of butterflies converge on the blossoms of sage and ornamental salvias. The hummingbirds are missing out on the feast of honeysuckle and columbine blossoms.

Last weekend we celebrated one granddaughter's 4th birthday at our place. While great-grandparents and great-aunts and uncle chatted inside, after eating of the cake and opening of the presents, she and grandpa went out to search for snakes and lizards under the tarps covering the compost piles.

They found one....

Don't know what kind it is. The reptiles have been quite active this spring, getting out and about on the warm days. Lizards skittering across the stone paths, snakes gliding whereever they wish.

One day I found a large snakeskin, 6 feet long at the least, freshly shed, at the edge of the garden. I am sure that its former occupant was one very large black rat snake I had seen a few days earlier, coiled beneath a giant sage plant and then gliding beneath a huge stone in the terraced garden. Magnificent creature.

However, it must be patrolling the other end of the homestead, as a baby bunny has decided to live in our woodshed. I doubt that the small furry thing would hang around long if a 6-foot-plus rat snake were to appear on the scene.

Meanwhile...
Where is that rain?