Thursday, May 10, 2012

Yellow Time

It's Yellow Time at Willow Retreat.  Yellow is the first colour that shows up to let you know Spring is really here to stay. 



The garden is currently lush with daffodils and narcissus, and the forsythia is in bloom.  As well, we have masses of pear blossoms!  Funny thing about pears: they need another pear tree close by in order to fertilize, and they bear fruit in alternate years.  The other pear tree was split in two by a storm, and we had to cut half of it down, but it's still alive and has leaf buds.  I'm hoping that its pair (pardon the pun) will give us lots of lovely fruit this year!



The pear tree, holding its own rather well against that precocious forsythia.



A carpet of daffodils.



A golden sundown at Willow Retreat.

I was lucky enough to get some free horse manure for the vegetable beds.  If you can, get your hands on some, it's absolutely the best for the garden.  Make sure you get well-rotted manure though - if you put fresh horse manure on your garden, you'll burn the veggies!  And for those of you holding your nose and going "Ewwww ...", well-rotted manure doesn't smell at all.  It's like lovely crumbly compost.  Just spread it as evenly as you can over the soil with a garden fork, and then dig it in.  All you need then is a bit of rain, and you've got a wonderful bed for your veggie seedlings.  This is what they mean when they say "enriched with organic matter."  Yum!



You can never get enough daffodils, really.



And of course, you can`t have a Yellow theme without a Golden Retriever.  :D

Next time I go to the stables for manure, I`ll remember to bring my camera, and take some pictures of the horses.  Until then, you`ll just have to make do with Molly.



That faaaaace.

My next set of pictures should show leaves on the trees ... there`s certainly been enough rain lately!

Enjoy your May, wherever you are.