My cottage garden in mid June

My cottage garden is now in it's 8th season. It is different and sometimes better every year.The columbines are just glorious and so are the foxgloves, even tho they hung out under my Lollipop crabapple this year. The roses are just starting to bloom, so I will save those pictures to show you next week when they are at their peak
 My little granddaughters "helped" me in the garden today if you want to call it that, they picked an awful lot of flowers. But that's okay, there is plenty for everyone....I had quite a bit of cross pollination this year on the columbines and foxgloves with some new colors too.

stop by next week for the roses.....

My stair stringer garden

I have had this stair stringer shelf for a few years now--I used it extensively when I was really into green house growing at my other house. I used it for hardening out seedlings in the spring. When we moved to our current home, I brought it along thinking I would use for a annual container flower shelf, but never did followed thru. So after 5 summers,  finally decided to do an herb/veggie/annual flower project. The flower starts I will transfer to my cottage garden and the veggies include lettuce, radishes, baby carrots, lemon cukes (which I will transfer to a corner garden spot to climb) cilantro, dill, nasturiums, green onions

Click on photo to see more detail

If you were wondering how to create one of these space saving gardens, you can purchase a 3 step stair stringer at most building supply stores. Turn it upside down and nail on 2 2" x 4" boards to the inside for the back supports. then add another 2" x 4" across the top. Viola! A 4 shelf plant stand!