Garden pics

As promised here are a couple pics of what we planted last weekend.

First up are the blueberries. In the before picture (which I forgot to take) there would be 4, 8 - 10 ft tall shrubby sumac-y type things. Those are now gone and replace by the existing rose bush and the 2 new blueberries. We found out that it will probably take 3 years to produce. Since we're ideally never moving, I think we have the time.

Next is a shot of the planted beds from above. On the left (in the paritally cleared bed) are the herbs. The fully planted bed are the three rows of corn we planted a while ago and behind them to the right are the 4 tomato plants. 

Finally, a bonus pic of the new and improved climber. On the left side (sort of behind in the pic) is the stair-ramp i built a month ago and the front side is showing off a brand spanking new slide we found online for < $100. I was super easy to install and the kids love it. Mainly the love watching things go down it and Matty is constantly trying to climb up.

It rained pretty hard last night but everything seemed to make it through alright. The forecast is for nice weather starting tomorrow so maybe we'll see some serious growth soon.

Spring planting season

Back when we moved into the new house before new year's one of the things we were really excited about was the raised garden beds in the back yard. The neighbors mentioned that the previous owners once had tons of fruits and veggies coming out of the gardens so we couldn't wait to get going. There were originally 5 beds but we whacked one in order to enlarge the yard a little for the kids. That left 4 well-overgrown beds that we had to work with. Maybe a month ago we stipped the weeds off the top of one and planted 3 rows of corn plus some random wildflowers on the end. This weekend we saw the Home Depot had a buy one get one special on 3" - 5" seedlings and couldn't resist. We wanted to get some tomatoes and hot peppers but somehow ended up leaving with the following:

- 2 hybrid tomato plants

- 2 heirloom tomato plants

- 2 thyme plants
- 2 rosemary plants
- 2 parsley plants
- 2 basil plants
- 2 blueberry plants
- 1 gallon of paint

Notice the lack of peppers. Apparently tracking down nearly two year old while picking out plants has as adverse affect on remembering the list. They were really great in the store, though. They have been awesome at listening and behaving in public places and have really never let us down. Especially now that they can talk so well and have definite opinions on how things should be and what they want to do.

We actually followed through and got everything in the ground today. Having recently picked up a copy of Golden Gate Gardening, we were relieved when they say to start with a small piece of garden and don't bite off too much. That made us feel so much better about seeing our haul from the deeps only taking up the ends of a couple of beds. We'll see how it goes but hope to just keep reclaiming garden square footage and adding more veggies every month. We still have 3 beds (about 100 sq ft or so) left to transform from weed haven to functional garden, pending successful completion of Phase I. I'll let you know how it goes. Once I take a couple pics of the current setup they'll show up here as well.

As always, here's your picture of the month: