Anne and I have been busy with the yard lately. We've been moving some plants and adding a few here and there and also trying to grow some food plants. We moved a lot of the peonies and tulips last fall and they seem to be doing well in their new location. A few tulips we missed and moved early this spring, they didn't like that so much, we'll see if they come back next year I guess.

We got a ton of hostas from a lady selling them on craigslist and planted those along the fence in between a lot of the tulips that we moved last fall, then we put down mulch around them, it looks pretty nice!

We also went to home depot and got some yews to plant in the front of the house. That area was looking pretty bad, part of it was sort of being overrun by irises, but none of them were flowering, probably because they're almost always in shade. We dug up and moved some of the larger irises and just kind of turned the rest into the soil and planted our yews and then mulched the area. It looks a million times better.

Next to the rain barrel you can see one of my vines. Speaking of, my vines are doing really well, lots of new shoots and leaves. They also all have produced a number of clusters. However, since they are young and in their new home this year, I want them to concentrate on growing strong roots and good cordons, so I removed the clusters from all of my vines. I did leave one, I just couldn't bring myself to remove them all, I want to taste my grapes!

Earlier this week my Marquette grape vines arrived on our doorstep. I'm currently soaking their roots and will be planting them tonight. That's exciting! What's not exciting is that I won't really have a decent crop of grapes for another few years.

Wine making is a great way to teach patience.