Let the garden madness begin!

With the frost-free date (Memorial Day) rapidly approaching, the annual Garden Madness has struck the Boston area. You can't go near a nursery on a weekend without being stuck in a traffic jam. At 9:45am on Saturday, the parking lot at the Winchester Mahoney's was nearly full, and by the time I left, about an hour later, people looked like they were ready to knife each other for a parking spot.

I turned over the vegetable garden and planted pea, radish, and carrot seeds last weekend, but since I plan to put in most of the vegetables, herbs, and flowers next weekend, I had no choice but to weed the back garden. When we bought this house in 2000, the back garden was a tangled mix of Japanese knotweed and various ivies, but after clearing all that away, I planted tons of herbs and flowers, giving us a beautiful (and largely edible) garden perched on top of an old stone wall. Since then, I've let some of the flowers and other plants re-seed themselves, which seemed like a good idea at the time. Sadly, I know better now. But! The herb garden is still in pretty decent shape, about 75% self-maintaining (yay) and, after today, cleared out and ready for planting.

( More garden madness, and even some photos, after the cut. )