Hard to believe that summer is just days away! You would never know it here in my Northwest garden. It has been such a cold and wet and downright dreary spring. Just a few days here and there of sun. The garden is moving along sooo slow. Some plants in the herb garden are looking nice right now and I thought I would share some photos I took of them.

The photo below is of my Berggarten sage. I just love the nice thick green leaves it has. If I decide to let it flower this year I will have to remember to get some photos of them as they are just as attractive.

Lovage is just now beginning to flower. It stands a good 4 feet tall these days. It has grown a lot in the past few weeks. I photographed it back in April and you can really see how much it has grown since then.

Also photographed back in April was the Egyptian walking onions. They too, are now beginning to flower.

Feverfew decided to reseed itself last year and it has came up in some unusual places. As you can see, it is also flowering.

Last to share is another picture of Lady’s mantle in full flower now. See how pretty it looks next to the just beginning to flower lemon thyme.

Despite the gloomy weather the herb garden is still attempting to put on a show. The veggie garden, however, is another story entirely. I’m battling slugs, soggy soil, and a lack of warm weather. We might get some home grown veggies this year! Fingers crossed.

Yesterday afternoon was so beautiful and sunny. (Today is back to the gloomy gray I’m sad to say.) I went out to the garden with camera in hand and took a few photos here and there of the herb garden and the plants that are waking up. I just recently showed a photo of my comfrey coming back to life and it seems to be growing everyday now.

Below is a glimpse into one corner of my herb garden.

The plant in the front with the celery like foliage is lovage. I’m happy to see that it survived all the rain and did not rot away. This will be its third year in the herb garden and I am anxious to see how big it will get this summer.

Behind the lovage you can see my Egyptian walking onions. This also marks their third year in the garden and I am so pleased with how well they are doing this year. I have several nice and healthy clumps at the moment.

I love the Egyptian walking onions! Every bit of them is edible and we have been enjoying the greens in salads and soups for a few weeks now. (My 12-year-old and I especially like them in egg drop soup made with our homemade stock.) The kids love them because of how they “walk” around the garden. When they flower and grow heavy the tops fall over and a new plant will sprout– hence the “walking”!

Two herbs have reseeded themselves with abandon throughout the garden and I have willingly let them do just that. Below you can see some bronze leaf fennel has sprung up next to a new seedling of clary sage. I think they are going to look just lovely growing next to each other.

Finally, I took a photo of my roses and as you can see they are just beginning to wake up.

They are rather far along in waking up in comparison to my Japanese maples who happen to still be tightly in bud.

Not too much longer now and the garden will be bursting with plants and flowers! I cannot wait to get my little man out there exploring it all–my little man who just happens to be one years old now! Where did that year go?!

This year I grew onions in the garden and there are all but two left that I finally pulled up just this week. We managed to eat up all the rest rather quickly. They were so good on tomato sandwiches! I now know that for this house, I need to grow lots more onions next year.

We do cook with onions a lot in my house. They are such a versatile ingredient that adds so much to one’s cooking. Leave out onions and you are leaving out a lot of flavor. As tasty as they can be I have yet another reason for loving this simple crop.

Briefly on this blog I have mentioned my love affair with knitting but I have failed to mention yet another passion of fiber I have. This passion happens to combine my love of gardening with my love of knitting very well making it a power packed craft for me. What is this craft? Well, for a few years now I have been using herbs and other various plants from my garden to dye my yarn that I use in my knitting. It has been an incredibly addicting thing for me to do. All I want to do now is fill my garden up with plants that I can dye with.

That brings me back to the humble little onion. Not only is this one handy veggie crop to grow for eating BUT it can also be used for dyeing. The skins from yellow onions make an amazing dye and the colors you achieve from them are very beautiful. The picture below shows yarn that I dyed with onion skins just recently.

Every time I pull out these skeins of yarn I am amazed that I can achieve this range of color just by using simple onion skins. So, the next time an onion starts to bring tears to your eyes as you cut it up keep in mind just how useful they really are!