The State of the Garden

Things are growing well! This is our first year in this house so it's been exciting. The raspberry patch has become a raspberry jungle, where I have to battle bees, birds and spiders to fight for my crop ... I should put netting over it but I don't want any birds to get trapped, and the back 1/4 is inaccessible to humans anyway so could the birds please restrain themselves to that section and leave the rest for us? Does anyone have any advice for raspberry gardening? It looked very civilized in March ... I'm not sure what happened but suddenly the Amazon looks feeble and friendly.

It looks like the "orchard" pruning we had done on the apple tree was effective. The apples are growing nicely. We've had a mixture of rain and hot weather for weeks so everything is blooming and happy ... and I'm starting to reclaim the lawn from the dandelions that attempted a hostile takeover while the property was vacant last summer. (This war is not over yet, but there are lots of dead dandelions and the new ones are very small so it looks like progress.)

First time growing strawberries in planters - so far so good. 

A few are ready for breakfast every morning. And they're easy to pick.

Nasturtiums - one of my favorites. 

A wine barrel full of color for the price of a $0.99 seed packet.

Another favorite - lilies. Now I want more in different colors.

Not sure where he came from!

Apples doing their thing.

The jungle. Truly.

Good old bedding plants.