I thought the lean-to needed more substance, and so I fortified it some today. I also planted a flowering currant shrub. That’s the plant with the yellow flowers on the right side of the photo.

The veggie garden is coming along fine. We’ll be eating spinach and mesclun and scallions soon. We haven’t made any progress yet on the mosaic on the veggie bed but hopefully we’ll get to it soon.

I created a new garden – to the right in the photo – for tomatoes and herbs. A few days ago I decided there would be no more frost in Long Branch for the season, meaning it was safe to plant tomatoes. My friend Spicecat gave me some “seedlings” that were threatening to take over the house they were getting so big. Now they’re in the ground. The area to the left used to have two trees – you can see the stumps where a spruce and a cedar once grew. This area is going to become a shrubbery, and I’ve planted two dogwoods, a verbenum, an elderberry and a Japanese Kerria. Eventually, these plants will grow up and create a large shrub anchor for the north side of the garden. By the way, Mr. and Mrs Sparrow have moved into the birdhouse you can see at the top right of the photo. We’ve had this birdhouse for years, first on Blackthorn and now on Twenty-Seventh, and this is the first year birds have moved in.