I love being in the garden more than ever. I think working on the computer all week, days at my job, nights at my hobbies, has really got me appreciating being in contact with real earth. Here are some shots of recent little things that have happened.

Spanish lavender planted last weekend in the parking strip next to our driveway. I am hoping they will soon look like  the ones I planted a couple years ago. The little tree there is an Eastern Red Bud.

Spanish lavender growing in the parking strip outside my house in Albany.There’s some redish grass there next to it that grows really big and i cut it down to the ground every winter. Albany, CA. 2008.

Looking south along the garden on the east side of the house. I guess you can’t see too much from here, and there is not much color right now, but I kind of like the shot anyway.

Looking north along the garden on the east side of the house. Not much color right now, but I kind of like the shot anyway. Apricot tree in the foreground, doing much better this year. Some vegetables in the round area: tomotoes, carrots, parsnips, lettuce. The green carpet is a few varieties of thyme. The golden poppies that come up around the garden are all volunteers. I have had them last few years but never planted any myself.

THIS is the thing I am most excited about this season. I just planted this espalier-trained apple tree with six varieties grafted on to it: braeburn, gala, fuji, red delicious, golden delicious, and gravenstein. It is actually on an eastern exposure, but near the south corner, so I’m crossing my fingers and going for it.

This spring’s project was getting rid of the last of the tons of lanscaping pebbles that once covered the entire garden. I had them confined to some path-like shapes, but they were still kinda awful. I managed to give away almost all of them, and that opened up the area to the left to wrap around the path of Arizona Red flagstone. The log-themed raised beds are the last vestiges of the prior landscaping schemes.