Everything is growing up!

I took this picture of one of our beds of lavender recently and was amazed at how much it has grown. But then to look back at the pictures from two years back – Oh my!

Lavender bed 2013
Lavender bed 2013

Two years ago it looked like this:

New lavender bed 2011
New lavender bed planted June 2011

And then last year:

Lavender bed 2012
Lavender bed 2012

Last year everything was early so I was harvesting my dear Melissa (second from left) the first of June. This is more of a “normal” year and looks like the harvesting is a week or so away for most of our lavender.

I’m amazed at how this area has changed and evolved. Everything is getting bigger and our planning has paid off. In just three seasons, our shade and sun area has really come together. But this beauty doesn’t come without some work including spraying deer repellant. If Dave didn’t, there would be no hostas to enjoy.

Some of our hostas in the shade area
Some of our hostas in the shade area

The Astilbes below are from my master gardener friend Barbara. She brought these from Virginia and now they will live on here. Unfortunately, Barbara will be leaving this area soon, but this area will remind me of her.

Astilbes from Barbar
Astilbes from Barbara

In other gardening related news, I harvested our last bunch of asparagus for this year. In addition to eating asparagus at many meals,  I froze 9 bags to cook with this winter.

Last of 2013 asparagus harvest
Last of 2013 asparagus harvest

I also made a cobbler from the cup and a half cherries I harvested from our little tree.

2013 cherry cobbler
2013 cherry cobbler

And here is the last of the irises to bloom – one of my favorite. Love those two colors together.

2013 iris

I’ve been looking at scrapbooks lately. I’ve quit making them since we both blog about much of what would go in those books. However, as I was looking at them, I really enjoyed sitting back and flipping through the pages. I had already decided that I will scrapbook about our Australia trip, but now even our picnics and other adventures would be nice to document.

I’ve wanted to make a book from our blogs, but since we are self hosted, I’ve only found one service that would make them and they are now out of business. If you know of any that make books from self-hosted blogs, please let me know.

Besides gardening, I’ve enjoyed teaching my marbling class (today is our second session) and working on some other stuff I’ll share soon.

So much to do. So little time.