Gardening Gains

Yard & Garden

After spending many weekends in the yard it is looking really good. Shelby spent several mornings of last week in the vegetable garden digging up all the weeds and tilling up the dirt so we could plant. I've been weeding and neatening up the flower beds and we've both been on slug patrol. One night we went out in the yard with a bucket and picked up over 125 of the little demons! They were everywhere. I've since covered all the flower beds with slug bait and the population has dramatically decreased. Now we wait and see if my flowers recover.

Last weekend we really worked hard putting up three fences and getting the garden done. The dogs have been really good about running out the front door and peeing in the first spot of grass they come to and killing it. So we put up a small decorative fence along the walkway so that they are forced to pee elsewhere. Now the idiots go pee in the driveway and lately have taken up pooping there too. They have a huge back yard to go in and yet they insist on crapping in the driveway for the whole neighborhood to see. We also put up a fence around the vegetable garden to keep them (and any other critter that decides to visit us) out of there. And finally we put up a fence along the back of one of the flower beds because anytime we would play with the dogs and throw their toys to the back of the back yard they would cut through it and trample all my flowers. So now all the fences are in place, functional and pretty...sweet!

The vegetable garden is finally done. We dug up all the herbs and relocated them to one end of the garden. Shelby had to saw a bunch of limbs off one of the apple trees (you know he was SO sad to have an excuse to cut down trees!) so that the garden would get better light. Lastly we got everything in the ground. There are all kinds of things out there...corn, tomatoes, bell peppers, carrots, onions, radish, pumpkins, zucchini, strawberries, watermelon, spinach, green beans and probably a few other things that I can't think of right now. We have already had tomatoes and bell peppers off the plants with dinner and they are yummy. The raddish and corn is starting to sprout up too. I don't know what all will make it before it gets too cold but we are kind of using this as a practice season so next year we will be really ready come spring.

In addition to the garden and fruit trees we have several berry bushes in the backyard. We have a huge raspberry bush that will be ready soon and tons of red currant that is ready to pick now. I am going to have to look up what the heck to do with red currant because I certainly have enough of it! On Monday the neighbor brought over a bunch of apples from one of his trees. He had some on his trees that came in early and were ready for picking now. I made fresh applesauce and apple turnovers with them. MMMMMMMM! Both were delicious. Now I can't wait for our apples to be ready this fall. Atlas thinks they are ready now though. He takes the ones that fall off the tree and plays with them like a ball. He will run around the yard with the apple in his mouth and throw it up in the air and chase it around the yard. If I put an apple on the kitchen floor he'd eat it in no time. Yet somehow he can keep an apple in the yard for days on end without actually eating it. Gotta love that dog, that's why we call him special.

It's kind of nice to live someplace where we can actually garden. We've always lived in places that don't abide by the four seasons a year concept and are too hot for anything to grow. It's also nice that it rains regularly here and I don't have to stand in the yard and water every day to keep the plants alive...I was always bad about that. There are plenty of pics in the album, enjoy!