Tulips and rain

The rain continues today so gardening is on its own. I started a second blog site for just such occasions. One about the kids and our daily life. Not sure how frequently each site will be written on, but I have a hunch that they will either have a ton of posts to long dry spells. much like the weather.

sodyl.blogspot.com

Wash out

So, today is a rest day, if those really exist when you have two kids aged 2 and under. I was able to get outside and de-stone and de-root my beds a bit more. Looking much better. Then the drizzle started so I called it quits for the day. I am glad for the rain as it means I don't have to water the lawn or flowers today. It is also a nice soft drizzle so none of the seeds will get washed away. Things will just be kept "evenly moist" as the seed packets say.

Berry-licious Summer

I made it out this afternoon to a nursery near-by and bought a couple raspberry bushes. They were $25 each and from a novice's stand point looked good. I then got more topsoil at Home Depot and noticed they actually did sell Raspberry bushes there too. Theirs were $7 each and looked pretty pathetic - just one dry stick sticking out of a box. Mine have a bunch of healthy looking moist sticks as well as green leafy shoots coming out of a nice pot of fertilized soil and thick with roots. I think I did right buy paying more here.

I ran into a bit of a bump in planting the first bush - next to the drain pipe buried in the ground for the eave of the roof. I knew it was there, just didn't know the extent of it or how shallow it was. So my bush is not centred. Oh well?

I guess I just have my tomatoes left to plant. I decided it would be a good time to try and clean up my beds and remove some of the rocks as right now they resemble more of a rock garden than flower or veggie garden. I hate all the spider-web-like roots in there too, so I am grooming the beds now (at least on the surface as I know there are MANY more below the top) to look more earthy than gravel-y.

Finally at long last!

The Tulips are here! The tulips are here! I have been waiting SO long for them to bloom. Two things I didn't know - 1. How much longer it takes tulips to bloom than daffodils and 2. How gorgeous the leaves are even before the flower blooms.

So, today will be the best day for the tulips that have started to open up. They are my favorite at this moment. I am not so crazy about them when they fully open - look like poppies that are too tall and scraggly. So, I shall cherish this moment. I took some pictures too to help embed the image in my memory forever.

Two things that, well, SUCK about blogger: the font selection. I keep choosing "trebuchet" and when I start typing it reverts back to roman. I have to select it a bunch of times before it actually takes. The other is the photo upload. having problems again. I just spent a bunch of time uploading three pic's and when it said it was done they were nowhere to be found. GRRR. Hopefully by the time this is read there will already be photos at the top of the page.

Extremist

Major yard work underway and up to speed, so today after all my watering I have turned my eyes inward. Inward - inside my much neglected house. I have watched the filth pile up, dust bunnies feed upon table scraps, clutter creating a landscape of its own. I have tried to turn a blind eye and wait for rain or another excuse not to work outside so that I could take care of my dirty house. Even though it is sunny and warm today, I felt I could wait no longer. I swept while "George" was on TV, then cleaned the kitchen and dining room while Dylan had his AM nap and Sophia did her thing. After out door play and then Dylan waking from his nap we hit the mall to make an exchange and run around up and down the ramps (Sophia, not me, haha). Came home and lunched and Sophia watched Caillou (REALLY irritating show, but one of two shows she really ever asks for...). Once down for their PM naps I hit the chocolate ice cream and munched on some chips for 15 minutes and then picked up the mop. I was going to skip the basement, but while putting the mop away I figured what the heck and vacuumed that up and cleaned the bathroom.

All this cleaning made me realize I am an extremist. I wait for the house to get REALLY dirty and then I make it REALLY clean. No in betweens. I guess it is why I like that "Designed to Sell" show. I am big on "before and after" shots. On that show they redo a few rooms and you see the before and afters. When I clean, it really isn't very satisfying unless I can SEE the difference. Maybe this is why I have taken the yard on so vigorously this year. I really need to see a difference. I don't just want to rake the lawn - I want a lush, beautiful lawn Tommy can practice his putting on. A plush carpet under my baby's tender feet.

Disillusionment

So, I don't think my corn is even going to make it to make a feast for the birds. They have already dug up the seeds and eaten them. i guess I have found a spot for my tomatoes! Not really happy with the whole veggie patch this year. My rows look pathetic. WAY too hilly. I think they are going to wash away with all the seeds before the seeds even germinate. Definitely more into the flowers than veggies. I am looking forward to next year already when I don't bother with veggies at all and just have pretty flowers. I still hope to have raspberry bushes, a small herb garden and maybe tomatoes next year, but all these other ones I think are kind of pointless. especially in a garden the size I have.

Onto yard landscaping - I still want to make the kids a sand box as I need ways to entertain Sophia IN THE YARD while Dylan takes his morning nap. Maybe just buy one as I don't think ethan wants one permanently in the yard. Though MY perspective is that the temp one will kill the grass below it and we will have to plant new grass there ANYWAY, so why not just dig it up now and do it properly? We'll see. Buying IS easier...

Just raking

Today wasn't a very INTERESTING day of work, just hard labor. Raked the second quadrant of lawn for two hours while the kids napped. Dylan was TRYING to thwart these efforts (woke about 45 min into it) but I wasn't up for a fussy kid all afternoon and straining to keep him awake until 7pm. I won :) He went back to sleep and I did a heck of a job raking the rest of the lawn that I will tackle this spring. Hopefully this will look SO good this summer that I won't have any negative vibes about this project from my hubby.

Seed it and it will grow

I guess the kids want us to have a nice yard too. Both cooperated again this afternoon and i got a couple hours in. First off I put the fertilizer Ethan picked up for me on the lawn. package said 1.5lb per 100sf. I estimated 300sf of lawn ready so I used the neighbor's seed spreader and sprinkled away. Then I read the seed bag and was relieved to see the seed spreader was a Scotts, just like the seeds and the make was on the bag. I even figured out the whole setting adjustment. Was supposed to be 30.5 for existing lawns and 32 for new. well, there were lots of "new patches" so I went with 31. Another confusing thing was the fertilizer instructions. Only had for NEW lawns with the amount to put on. Again, ours is mostly existing and a bunch of patches. I assumed Ethan told the guys at the store what we were doing and they recommended this stuff so.... hope I don't burn out the lawn... Moss, ok, burn away, just leave the few blades of grass alone.

Now that quadrant of lawn has been seeded and watered. I added some "Alyssum" seeds to the front flower beds and watered those too. Those are about the only flowers I could find for partial shade. (Even though that area is pretty much ALL shade, hopefully these will grow. Supposed to smell nice to boot! Watering the garden now and waiting to see sprouts all around.

Next task is to record all my plantings and figure out my thinning schedule for everything.

Full Steam Ahead

Both kids had great naps today in addition to Sophia having a playdate for a couple hours during Dylan's morning nap so there was lots of time for mom to get gardening. Well, it was more of a landscaping day with a little gardening in the end. I decided I really needed to get on the lawn as spring will be gone before we realized it was here and now is a good time for reseeding. This week in particular with the nice weather.

New word: Thatch.
We have a lot of it and that isn't a good thing. Lots of dead packed down grass. I learned that I needed to use the metal rake rather than just the fan rake to get that out. I thought a barrel full of grass from the whole lawn was a lot. I got a whole barrel from 1/4 of the lawn using the metal rake. YIKES! I have also made Ethan nervous at this stage of the lawn renewal project. There is a lot of dirt showing and he said while looking at it "Remember how green the lawn was last year?" The REASON there is so much dirt showing is not because I have butchered the lawn with the rake, though. Raking has brought the realization that our lawn is composed of 50% moss, 30% thatch and 20% grass. In order to have a lush lawn one must remove the thatch and moss. Not wanting to completely reseed the entire lawn from bare soil I left about 80% of the moss and raked out the big clumps that had little to no grass growing through it. Wednesday will be seed and fertilize day.

The seeder was dirty, so I washed it out and changed gears and put on my gloves and planted flowers while the seeder dried in the sun.

Slow learner: So, when I set out to rake I intentionally did NOT wear gloves as I thought I wasn't actually going to be putting my hands in the dirt, so why use them. OUCH. Major callus' and blisters.

Part of the benefit to buying little starter plants is that you can SEE the plant when you plant it. You know WHERE it is and generally what it looks like. I was trying to follow the pack directions for spacing and remember where each seed went, but that was getting difficult after about a hundred seeds. Still frustrated with the seed packs. The ones I wanted lots of covered very little territory and others i had WAY too many. The spacing of those were really far apart (not the sprinkle method of planting that I like). So, I planted some flowers that are supposed to be good for cutting in the middle section of the front flower beds. Then I planted some "Flour O'Clock tea time mix" all along the bed. They are supposed to be very fragrant. my favorite :) The problem with the packs is they don't say when they bloom. say they start coming out of the ground in about a week, but how long after that? I was planting them where the daffodils and Tulips are and sometimes in FRONT of them so I hope they don't get too big before the flowers stop blooming. Also, they say to thin them, but what if I want a thick grouping of them. Will they kill each other fighting for water and food? I don't want a sparse bed. Also, if a pack says to plant something 12in apart, can you plant something else in between? I just kept putting seeds in there and hope some come up. The other thing I didn't take into account with all this variety is that each pack has a different instruction for thinning them so I will have to record what and where I planted each seed and write down what I am supposed to do to it and WHEN. Holy complicated.

Back in Busy-ness

Feeling better today I got back into the swing of things. Some of the things I learned are:

1. My garden is still really small.
   
2. When I laid out the beds I really had in mind lots of flowers, not rows of veggies.
   
3. The soil was really dry. REALLY dry. I think I should have wet it down before starting.
   
4. I don't do things the "normal" way.

I decided to try plant most of the veggies along the house and try get flowers along the fence where I can see them from inside. I still wanted to put the cuke's against the fence and that is when I realized there isn't a lot of room for much else. I still plan on getting some flowers in front of them. Back to the house side. Because I made the beds all curvy (visions of flowers, not veggies danced in my head) I thought convetional horizontal rows wouldn't work very well. So, I decided to go with very short rows perpedicular to the edge of the house. Looks SO crazy. I have enough seeds left over to plant the entire yard. Anyone want some carrot seeds? I only have 4 packs left... They just don't tell you on the pack HOW many seeds are in there or how far they will go!

My rows also look more like mountains and valleys than actual rows. I think I washed all the seeds away in my first watering. Luckily I have back up seeds.

So here's how she lays....

The first couple 2' mounds is where my zucchini will flourish and I will take the extra squash that I can't use to the farmers market to sell.

The next mound in front of the basement window is the watermelon I will feed the neighborhood kids with.

The four rows between the windows is the corn that will help feed the birds when Ethan forgets to refill the bird feeder above it.

Next is another watermelon patch for the kids and lastly the four rows of crisp carrots that will fatten up the neighbor's rabbit for the winter.

I still have yet to buy raspberry bushes and am excited for Sophia to pick and enjoy them.
On the other side I have those four 2' mounds for cucumbers and on the other end I planted cilantro, basil and parsley between the two lilacs. The end of the row is capped off with a peony.

I also just realized I didn't leave room for tomatoes. Not good. have to squeeze them in somewhere.

I have decided to give seeds a try this year instead of buying the starter plants. Those are SO expensive by the end of it. We will see how green my thumbs actually are. I planted some delphinium orchids behind my "herb garden" and will sprinkle seeds along the fence where the tulips and daffodils are to be in bloom when those are done.

I leave you with the final photo of my precious orchid in bloom again. (Despite the scars of past toddler battles).

Day five

Production halt. Flu bug came back. I thought those nasty looking grub bugs were bad. Why do I get these bugs mid week? Why did I get this one at all??!! I just HAD the stupid flu. Hopefully I will be up and running again this weekend.

Day Four

So, the kids both took a good nap this afternoon and I got almost 2 hours of digging in. Completed the fence side. Ethan bought fertilizer for the rest of my gardening instead of cow poop. I like the poop because it adds extra volume to the beds. The fertilzer IS cheaper, though... I am still undecided as to what to use for leveling the lawn. Thinking I may buy a bag of topsoil from HD and see how far it goes. I really have to get that seeded.

I also decided to be a plan out my garden a little more (as opposed to just throwing the seeds up in the air and hoping the grow. I drew a little plan of the garden and will lay it out there.

I also took a little stroll around the yard to check out last year's labors. Ok, I do this everyday, multiple times a day, but this time I brought the camera. I am so excited the daffodils and tulips are coming up. There are also little crocus sprouts appearing. Some are green spikey things and other look like I planted the bulbs upsidedown. I have been told by two people that at least know more than I do about gardening that it is unlikely that this is the case. I hope that they are just a different variety.

Day Three

Slow going

Worked on the corner next to the major roots and well, in the hour I had I got about 6ft done. I also felt at any moment I would crack the neighbor's edger into pieces so I treated myself to a new one. While at home depot I bought some seeds - about 4 kinds of carrots, a few kinds of cukes, corn and zucchini. Still have no idea what I am doing there. I also got to thinking while looking through all the seeds. There were lots for flowers there too. Would they really grow for me from seed or should I spend the big bucks and get the ones the nice people at HD already started for me?

Day two

Let the digging begin. I started digging my first patch today. Wore gloves, hands still hurt. I decided to start on the side closest to the garage and furthest from the large oak trees. I learned while digging the vegetable patch last year (while 9 months pregnant with Dylan) that there are MANY roots at the other end and VERY difficult to dig through. In order to avoid becoming discouraged at the biginning of my digging I started at the easy end. And WOW, did I make progress! I got most of that side done and as I suspected, that progress quickly slowed it's pace as I neared the oak tree corner. I have a little more to complete, and can't wait to get to the other side.

Day one

The weather turned out to be really nice today, so while Sophia and Dylan took a super nap AT THE SAME TIME and Ethan was on a hike I decided to take on the lawn. I got out the rake and had a giant barrel for lawn refuse and decided I was good to go. In hindsight, I wish I added gloves to my supplies as my hands are killing me now. As I went around the yard I noticed that there was a lot of moss and raked up a bunch of that deciding I would reseed those areas later. Then I saw there were many pothole like dips in the lawn. I actually knew those were there already and have hated them since we moved here a few years ago. I decided that this would be the year that I did something about them. I will try and fill them in and again reseed as necessary. As I came to the back of the house, 3/4 of my barrel full of dead grass, I saw that there was no need to rake there. There really isn't any grass to speak of. Just my garden attempt from last year and a lot of dirt where grass was supposed to be. This is where I decided to take on the whole yard, not just the lawn. If grass didn't want to grow there (intense sun burns it out and we are too lazy to try and water it regularly) then I would expand my vegetable patch and turn the rest into a flourishing, fragrant, beautiful garden.
Before picture, June 2007

Ethan, his mom and Tommy arrived soon after this revelation so I took 5. I then set off to layout this garden. I got some rope and laid out my two garden patches. I made a squiggly path between the two sides careful to make sure that there was enough room for a lawn mower to pass as I knew I would need this in order to get Ethan's blessing. Once I was almost sure that I was set to go I called Ethan for his opinion (not that I would TAKE it, but wanted to have it regardless). He of course had his thoughts - why don't you straighten it out a bit? Make it 6 inches wider... Not only did he vocalize these opinions, but started to act on them which I quickly put a stop to and told him he was no longer needed here. I re-curved up the path and then borrowed the neighbor's edger (on it's last leg, so wobbly that I am afraid with each push into the dirt it will completely fall apart). After having the garden outlined with this edger, pleased with my progress, I called it a day.

Before Picture, April 2008

I forgot to take the picture before I started, so there is already evidence of my squiggle path in the makings.