Yardwork

I spent most of the morning and early afternoon working in the yard. Lots of mowing, weeding, pruning and just puttering around. Also, I cleared out an area in the back part of our yard and Cole and I made 2 more compost piles. I love that he gets as excited about it as I do. We used layers of leaves, pine needles, pinecones, newspaper, shredded cardboard and egg cartons, grass clippings, manure, coffee grounds, banana peels, dryer lint, egg shells, and some other food scraps. Then we covered it with a layer of topsoil and wet it down.

aren't they lovely? {grin}

My rhododendron is in full bloom...SO pretty!

What I'm reading

Best gardening book..EVER. If you're into that sort of thing. I totally am. Had you noticed?

Gardening stuff

Not much time for blogging lately, as I have been hard at work in my flowerbeds and garden. Gardening has always been a great passion of mine...I love the thought of growing my own organic veggies and tending to my flowers and plants. Here is a bit of what I've been upto...

My lilac seedling, which I snuck from the flowerbed of a bank at 5:30am. Oh, the thrill!

Yummy tomatoes and chives

Raspberry bushes

Clematis...just planted this year.

strawberries

"Gracie's rose"....we planted this the year she was born....Cole has one too!

Our peonies...can't wait till they bloom!

Roses, creeping phlox, hostas, and something else I can't remember the name of!?

A view of our deck that Paco built a few years ago

The rocks you see in this picture were literally rolled into our yard from the street by Paco and I last summer, when they were putting in the sewer. We both spent the next few days nursing sore backs!

Rhododendron...this picture was taken a week ago..it's in full bloom now. We actually built our deck around this bush so we didn't have to lose it!

one of our two topsy-turvy tomato planters. We had tremendous success with these last year!

one of 4 planters on the deck

new blueberry bushes waiting to be planted...you need 2 to cross-pollinate!

front porch flowers

fireweed and lobelia in the front flowerbed

Columbine

can you guess what this might be?

red and orange peppers

Since I took these pictures a week ago, our corn has sprouted up 2 inches, the chives are growing strong, and the carrots, radishes and onions and peas are up. I planted several sunflowers for fun so the kids and I can watch them grow, and then harvest the seeds. I also planted african daisy and poppy seeds, taking great care to spread them evenly in little clusters. Then our basset hound came behind me and dug them up. {Grrrr} We shall see where they sprout up!

 Can't wait to watch my yard bloom and grow. How I love gardening!

Our garden, 2010

The kids and I planted our garden a few evenings ago. We love doing this together. Last year, Paco built our raised garden.  It did AMAZING!! He has promised to build another smaller one next to it so we can grow even more. I did a few things differently this year. No zucchini or cucumbers. They just took up too much space. However, I will do cucumbers again when I have more room. This year we planted: sweet corn, red and orange peppers, bush beans, snap peas, radishes (Gracie's favorite!), carrots, onions, yellow tomatos, red tomatos, chives, broccoli, basil, oregano, and cilantro.

I had to throw in this picture from last year, when we were filling our new garden with soil. Obviously, gardening is tough work! (FYI, there was a bit of exaggeration going on in this photo!)

We can't wait to watch it grow this summer. Gardening is something I love sharing with my kids and I hope they carry on with it with their families...it's so rewarding!

Greenhouse project

Paco bought Cole and I a mini greenhouse project to work on for one of Cole's cub scout achievements. We planted Basil, Oregano, Chives and Cilantro.

So far so good! After 1 week our herbs are sprouting up! Who needs herbs? This is a bit more than we can use!