I like a succession of blooms in the flower bed that runs along our back porch.  This is Act One, and it provides early color while the longer-lasting perennials are maturing for their turn in the spotlight.  Invisibly growing up, hidden under and behind these purple and white blooms, are Butterfly Weed, Cone Flowers, Liatris, tall Sedums, tall Phlox, Russian Sage, tall Soapwort, Veronica, Daylillies, Obedience Plant, etc.  Here below are some easy, early-flowering combinations that I use almost every year.  These flowers bloom for several weeks in Spring, for parts of April and May, maybe a month, or more or less, depending upon the weather that year.  So this year, we have a good example of some of the blooms.  Please note that usually, I also have big red and pink poppies blooming with these, but am just now in the process of replacing poppies that have gotten pushed around and inadvertently dug up over the years during plantings of annuals, etc.  So here we go with some of my favorite old standbys.

Tall purple Dames Rockets (Hesperis matronalis) are an old-fashioned favorite that used to be planted outside the back/kitchen door of early-American farm houses in Pennsylvania and other nearby states.  They also come in white.  Each year, I let one Dames Rocket go to seed and then save the seeds from the long, thin seed pods once the pods dry out and start to crack.  In August or September, I scratch the seeds into the soil and keep them lightly watered for a couple of weeks until they start to sprout and take.  If you look closely, you can see the dark green leaves of tall phlox coming up.  In this photo, the Dames are fronted by an early daisy called ‘filigran’ as described below.  Oh and p.s., the Dames Rockets have a lovely, faint floral scent.

 Purple blossoms of the common chive are in the foreground of this photo.   I use these chives all Spring and summer for cooking.  When the flowers are spent, I cut the whole plant down to the ground and they re-grow quickly, several times over a summer and into late Fall.  These slowly spread over the years, so that you can always have one little patch flowering while the other regenerates and blooms again.  You can also pot up a little patch to give away.

 The tall red/pink flowers are Centranthus ruber, otherwise known as Jupiter’s Beard.  This is an “ever bloomer” meaning that if you cut it back as you go, it will bloom from May to the first frost.  It does spread and go to seed, so I deadhead the spent blossoms, and pull out a clump of it here and there as the summer wears on.  Later, if it gets leggy or the blooming slows down, I’ll cut a foot off it and let it start over for another bloom.  I planted 3 of these in April 2007 and have had descendants ever since.  They bloom early, and provide that little contrasting pop of red needed to offset the predominant purples and white’s I have going.  You can’t see it, but I always start packs of white alyssum along the bottom front of the beds, so that it smells like honey.  The honeybees love the alyssum and the low alyssum look sweet down at the front edge, and sort of hang over and soften the front edge of the bed.  Alyssum are also easily started by seed.  I have not tried the purple alyssum, always love the look and scent of the white.  Please note the darker-purple spires of Salvia just starting to open on the middle right of the photo.

 Daisy, Leucanthemum ’filigran’ is the cultivar.  I’ve tried different oxeye daisies and Shasta daisies, and this is my favorite for various reasons.  It’s early, it’s a little shorter, so it’s a bit more manageable than some of the taller shastas.  This one is a winner; it can take a beating under wind and rain and stand back up for you, even when we get the Spring storms off the water.

 A close-up of the dark-pink Jupiter’s Beard.

 The deep purple spires of Salvia are among my favorites, because they bring a different shape and intensity of color to the garden.  There are so many good things about Salvia!  They’re deer resistant, rabbit resistant, can take it dry or even a bit salty.  They attract hummingbirds and bees.  They can take clay soil to sandy soil, and are not invasive.  Once spent, you can cut the individual stems back for a second bloom.  What’s not to like!

This is the first time I’ve ever grown beets.  I have two raised beds that Lars made for me last year, and so last Winter, I placed an order with Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply.  I bought organic seeds, vegan fertilizer, etc.  As for the beet seeds, I chose the Chioggia “Candystripe” variety (organic, of course).  The Chioggia beet is an Italian heirloom that has red and white rings within it (see photo below).  I saw online sites that advised eating beets raw, grated into a salad, etc.  I was still a bit leery of eating them raw, due to worries about the oxalic acid present in all parts of the beet plant.  You see, I once knew someone who almost died eating undercooked taro on a camping trip in the Hawaiian rain forest.  So, as I was preparing the raw beets, I ate one small slice, just to test it out.  Sure enough, within 5 minutes, my throat was sore and inflamed.  Some people advocate putting raw beets or beet greens into the juicer, but others have allergic reactions, so please be aware that not everyone can eat raw beets and raw beet greens!  Beets are disliked by many, and there’s a theory that this is due to an organic compound called Geosmin that lies within the beeting heart.  Geosmin is what makes beets smell like the earth, and this earthy scent also translates into the taste of the beets.  Geosmin is also what we smell when soil is newly wetted or disturbed, and human animals are very sensitive to this.  It’s my theory that the extreme sensitivity to Geosmin (in soil) often helped humans find water in the desert.  Eating beets is primal, and humans have been eating beets since the 2nd millennium B.C.  I have a lovely roasted beet salad on this site, that involves a light pickling of the beets in a simple marinade.  These Chioggia beets cook up to a peach-and-pink confection of color (see photo below).  My beet seed packet said to soak the seeds for 12 hours, but I did not.  I watered my seed row every day for a week though, and then a couple of times per week.  Once the seedlings pop up and are beginning to look crowded, you will thin the seedlings, as seen here on this video.  You plant the seeds 2″ apart for greens, 3″ apart for summer harvest, and 4″ apart for “storage growing beets.”  If your soil is not too compacted, the beets will pull up easily out of the ground.  For best flavor, harvest beets (roots) when they are 2-3 inches in diameter.  If you leave the beets in until they are too large, there will be some cracking at one end of the beet.  Below is a photo of a beet that had pushed its shoulders out of the ground, and announced loudly that I better harvest it pronto (it was still good, but only just).  Once I roast and pickle my beets, my favorite way to eat them is in a wrap with hummus and toasted almonds; it’s amazing.  OK, there are photos at the bottom, but first, here are some other basic rules about growing beets:

Beets are easy to grow.
Beets will tolerate light shade.
From germination, beets take about 60 days to mature.
In Spring, make sure ground is at least 45 degrees Fahrenheit before planting seeds, and plant as early as possible because beets don’t like the heat of summer.
Plant beets in succession about 3 weeks apart, so you don’t have too many beets all ripe at once, unless you want to do a big canning.
Beets like mulch to protect their roots from heat.
Beets are not harmed by Spring and Fall frosts, so you can also plant them in late summer for Autumn harvest.
For Fall planting, calculate when you think the ground will have a hard freeze, and backtrack 60-65 days for the date of the last Autumn succession planting.  Then move back another 3 weeks and then another 3 weeks for the first Autumn planting.  You will have to know your own climate in order to avoid having beets growing in high summer heat.
Fall beets can use some slow release granular fertilizer in the soil when they are planted, and maybe some kelp too.  In my little raised beds, I will probably not do a Fall beet planting in the same place that I did my Spring beets, so that my soil has longer to rest between like crops.
Beets prefer a soil that is not heavy clay.
Beets prefer a soil pH of 6.5 to 7.5.
If you grow beets in a very acidic soil, they can get black spot and be small and bitter.
Plant the beets the proper width apart (see above), so that the leaves shade the soil and keep it cooler.
Beets have a tap root, so just sow the seed, and do not start indoors unless you have to.
Beets do like sandy soil, but I do not have sandy soil.  I used the Vegan Mix Fertilizer from Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply and apparently, it works, because I have beautiful beets coming out my ears.