Astrantia

 Or Masterwort.  My kids have fun with that name.  Master of the house…master of the wort.  Then they collapse as children do in fits of uncontrollable laughter.  Rolling on the ground, holding their aching sides.

It is currently my favorite shade plant.  Interesting leaves, odd little tufts on flowers on spikey stems, and it self sows.  I have a white, and I hope to get some pink ones soon.

Mine is under a lilac, so it must do fine in sweet soil.  It also grew in my back bed which was deep shade and dry.  It didn’t thrive mind you, it did survive however.

The giantic mail box came from Minnesota Man’s family farm.  Back in the day, when people mailed letters to one another.  I use it to hold my gardening tools.  It is huge, I have a 2 gallon bucket in there with the hand tools, clippers, string, and gloves, and there is still room for the various bottles of elixirs, um er pesticides and insecticides and a mixture of bleach.  My arsenol, so to speak.

The Littlest Veggie Patch

Lacking room & sunshine I have what must be one of the tiniest vegetable gardens around.  This year we have onions, garlic, various lettuces & spinach, plus beans and the usual assortment of herbs.  I tucked a couple of tomato plants and an eggplant in with the flowers this year.

That was a week ago, we’ve harvested our first batch of greens since then, and an early garlic because I was too impatient to wait.

Did you notice the coffee cup in the background?  I left it on the rock wall.  I’m sure I forgot all about it and left it there until I went out the next day.  I do that frequently.  My dad did too, I when I was growing up.  Except with the good china cups.  We’d walk into the garden and find a good china cup & saucer sitting on the fence post.  He said the coffee tasted better out of china.