May flowers

May is definitely the busiest time of the year here in our garden, but the hard work seems to be paying off. We have plenty of beautiful flowers growing!

Klematis

Verbena

Iris

Ranunculus

Another ranunculus. These are definitely our favorite kind of flower...and our camera sadly does not do their beauty justice. We love how they open and close with the sun.

Weigela

The decision to plant so many flowers has all occurred on Yulia's initiative, but I now see why one would want them in a garden. They really do make the place look wonderful. I've even caught myself doting on them while giving them water in the evenings. If you're the kind of person that wants practical reasons for everything (I feel that way sometimes) then remember that geraniums repel mosquitoes, you can make tea out of hibiscus petals, and that nasturtiums are edible and are good as companions to tomatoes.

We've also been getting a harvest from our garden.There are plenty of greens and radishes coming in right now, and we are able to have a salad everyday. We've been eating different varieties of lettuce, spinach, kale, mustard, arugula, green onions, cilantro, and parsley. Greens are a must for us, so having such abundance right now is very welcome.

Some other edibles that we will soon be harvesting include fava beans, peas, strawberries, and cherries.

The bees really seem to enjoy the fava bean flowers

We started transplanting tomatoes several weeks ago, but we're still planting them. There are that many.

We put ten different varieties in this most recent bed. I can't remember all of them, but some of them include Ukrainian Pear, Japanese black, Japanese purple, Cherokee purple, White Wonder, Reise, and Zapotec.

We write down everything we plant in a robot dog notebook. Here it is among scattered seed packets:

But great beauty is created naturally too and is written in the landscape all around us--no robot dog notebook necessary. Just outside our village is Mother Nature's garden and her pet: roadside poppies and a stork.

Enchanting!