weekend planting update

Just a reminder from my primary lesson last week. The kids choose all the apples so I was left with these way better tasting minalows.

I wasn't going to put any pictures in cause there isn't really anything new, but then I went out and took some just so I could put them on here. It was snowing earlier today but not cold enough to stick! I mulched the little round bed and it looks pretty good. The plants didn't seem to mind their being dug up and put back too much last week.

Been busy in the garden as thats the place that makes me happy. With Kate's help I got some more of the walkways/trenches dug on Monday. Now its all done! It sure went a lot faster with two shovels!

That made it so I could get lots more done through the week a little at a time. I got the potatoes planted (i think that was Tuesday). I planted the onions, laid out more soaker hose, planted cabbage, planted my last three bushes, turned over all the beds, sowed some more lettuce and spinach, poked more pea seeds into the ground as they didn't come up real well, got the stump garden edging back in and weeded it, weeded the tree garden, finished the weed barrier on the herb garden and mulched it. weeded the little corner garden and mulched it, borrowed our landlord's ladder when he couldn't quite finish fixing the garage door to cut down more tree limbs (came close to killing myself only once instead of the 4-5 times last try). Cleaned and bleached all the bird feeders. It was a fun and busy week.

Whats on the agenda for this week? Get peat moss and other fertilizers into the unplanted beds and wait until its warm enough to plant those, put some edging between the lawn and old raised wooden parts, weed and edge the window gardens, decide what to do with the walkway half way finished, weedbarrier and mulch all the bushes, buy a 25' soaker hose and a 50' soaker hose, decide what to do with the extra 75' soaker hose, figure out how to do the drip system, and probably move 2-4 of the bushes in the side yard cause they aren't really going to work well there. I could move them to the other side but I really want to save that for two more grapes.... decisions, decisions, decisions.

Oh and today it looks like 2-3 of my cabbages are already bolting. HUH? its snowing outside how can they be bolting? Maybe I should see about a refund? they weren't that expensive so maybe I should just try again they did get a little dried out that first day and did go from the greenhouse to full sun exposure quickly, but still, its snowed today!

I cleaned up the garage a bit so our landlord could fix the garage door. It really needs to be straightned up but its hard when most of it isn't mine. I think I'm going to move most of the gardening mess to the shed even though I'm scared of it.

I have big plans for the back porch. I bought stuff for a drip irrigation system and part of it is little fogger/misters that I'll put up around the porch. It can make it up to 20* cooler in the space where you put those. I'm throwing out the gross carpet stuff thats there and going to paint the floor so it looks nice. My roommates said they would help. We can also re-stain or paint the wood, the roof thingy, etc to make it look nicer. I will need to start going yard selling so I can find us a cute table and chairs as that will be the coolest part of the house and it will be nice to be able to eat dinner in comfort and be able to enjoy the yard.

Caught a mouse last night, but I think I better get some more traps cause I think I heard another one. I don't think this one had been hanging around all that much because I learned that its better to put out traps at the first sign rather then wait to confirm sighting. Although that did happen this time. ewwwww (didn't take a picture)

I found out that we've got a sallmonella outbreak in the birds around here, specifically the pine siskens (hence the cleaning and bleaching this weekend of the feeders). I was thinking that it was just an early set of babies that didn't know better to fly away, but it turns out they are sick. I feel bad for them, but with the ferral cat hanging around at least they get put out of their misery fast. I still need to clean up the seed mess under the feeders and keep them cleaner then I've been doing. This picture is from last sunday, the birds were singing so cute and pretty, I couldn't catch them with my camera but it was great to sit on my front porch and listen to them. Hopefully I will have more times to do that through this year.

I'm very tired from staying up late last night from gabbing and laughing with Kate and Mama. Now that school is out hopefully we'll get to see more of Mama around, at least for the summer.

I didn't get all my inside chores done, but did clean the bathroom thoroughly. Kate straightened the front room, but I need to mop the floor in there and the kitchen. hopefully i'll fit it in this week.

Mom and Angela came through two weeks ago and I forgot to say how fun it was to have them even for a short time. I feel bad I didn't cook dinner for them but ended up doing a later home visit. Hey guys next time you come through I will try to think ahead and have something in the crockpot!

I made a creamy sausage and cheesy brocoli potato soup with homemade bread. It turned out pretty good. Won't be too many days left for warm meals like that so I need to get it in while I can.

I need to blog about the "tea party" I went to on tax day, so I'll hopefully get that done this week. I'll close with some pretty mountain pictures I've taken with my silly phone camera the last month or so. I love the mountains with snow on them, especially fresh stuff. I wish I could better capture the colors and dramatic contrasts in the mountains and sky. Today the sun and lake and clouds and snow on the close mountains and misty mountains behind the lake was took my breath away. I'm lucky to live in a beautiful place!

Do you see the double rainbow? didn't work so good for the camera but it was beautiful!