Random 5 for Friday~ It's Photo Day with a gardening theme!

I've been taking a few extra photos right now to capture spring on our farm, so I'm going to incorporate those into today's Random 5 for Friday post!

1. We have shifted from a late winter/cold spring into an early Summer! We are already in the 80's and low 90's here--not my favorite mid 70's that I wait for. But I can deal with the 80's. It means early suntan! It also means lots of playing in the creek.

2. Our beautiful fruit trees are growing so nicely. We have 2 apples and 2 peaches and the Macintosh apple is blossoming so lovely. Don't you just love the smell of apple blossoms? I think it was Anne of Green Gables who talked about "Drinking it in"...

The most perfect shade of pink on these buds of the apple blossoms

Apples on top, peaches on bottom

 3. We have the garden almost totally in. It ended up that we've run out of garden space so we only got in 2 rows of beans and 2 rows of corn--so we are going to put some more corn in over at my in-laws---who are our neighbors, so it isn't far away. We have a new to the organic market breed of corn to try this year Who Gets Kissed available from High Mowing Seeds (an heirloom/organic seed company). We also have tomato seedlings, pepper seedlings and broccoli seedlings to get in the ground--Sunday hopefully.

Green Bush Zucchini sticking its head out

4. The sprouts are starting to come up already--including the volunteers. Every year we always get volunteer sprouts. Last year it was butternut squash and currant tomatoes. This year it is sunflowers and watermelon. I've already pulled up about 100 sprouts and there are always about 30 more every day making their appearance. If they would be where they belong they can stay...but with that many, NONE of them are where I can let them grow! LOL

I pick roughly this many volunteers three times a day...so yeah, about 100 sprouts a day!

5. Gardening means finding gardening friends...like this beautiful snail I discovered while weeding my strawberry patch. We love doing a close inspection of them. Baby Britches named him Turbo and then we returned him to the strawberries for now. Once I get the berries on, I won't be doing that anymore. They adore eating berries.

My strawberry plants are so lush this year. I'm hopeful for a great crop!

I don't blame them. I adore eating berries too. I especially love fresh strawberries over any other fruit. There is nothing like them. We have a small blueberry bush trying to get established this year as well, but I doubt we will get more than a handful this season. We have wild blackberries all around us as well--some years they are less than stellar (like last year) and some years they are full and we can pick to our hearts delight. I'm hoping for a good year this year! 

Our snail visitor..Turbo.

I am in the middle of writing a Gardening 101 post to share--and then a spin-off post about companion planting. I hope to have those up in conjunction with my DIY Weed Killer that I've successfully created over the next week or so, so please make sure you stay in touch! You can always find me on my Facebook page, but I'm also on Twitter, and of course, you can subscribe to my newsletter! *****