Just pictures of plants

Woot, plants!

Plants!

No new pictures yet, since I'm too lazy to take them. We do have a lot of really legitimate growth in the garden, though. All the plants have sprouted now, and some of them are starting to get pretty big. I'll see if I can talk myself into taking pictures tonight so you guys can see them.

We also had our first weed pulling session, which was pretty fun and totally impromptu. We just sat outside for a while, plucking tiny weeds out of the garden bed. I think the veggies have become big enough and obvious enough at this point that any small, unidentified sprig is pretty much for sure a weed. We still have to thin the veggies themselves, but that can probably wait for a bit longer, too.

So that's it, really. Nothing much going on. Thanks for reading!

Growing Pains

Actually, there's no pain involved. The growing is happening and it's awesome. Here're our little sprouts:

These are our onions, grown from tiny bulbs given to us by the Webbers. They're already getting so big! Winifred has also gained access to the raised bed and established her dominance over the "Carrots" sign. I can't say I'm entirely surprised.

These are the barest beginnings of our tiny lettuce plants. They're scattered and densely packed right now, but as they get a little bigger, we'll thin them out.

This is the first sprout from one of our watermelon seeds. We planted three, and I really hope they turn out. Watermelon would be awesome to have at some late summer backyard picnics.

I also decided to thin the weeds in the back a little. In case you thought maybe I didn't have a lot of weeds back there, here's a picture.

How many weeds is that? All the weeds.

This is now fewer weeds. I actually got rid of all of them, but the light was failing so i snapped a pic before the job was done.

Here you can see the hose laid out in the yard, marking where the new line of lawn will go. We're cutting out a lot of it, but there will still be a whole lot left.

That's it for now! I'll get more pics of our little plants for you guys this weekend. I think we have a couple more poking through already. Woot! Thanks for reading.

Plans Within Plans

We got a little more done in the yard, including planting our seeds in our garden. I didn't take pictures because it still just looks like a big pile of dirt. We also had my mom and dad come over and help us start on a plan for the yard. We're taking out a lot of grass, but I'm surprised by how much is still going to be left over. We have a good-sized yard. We're going to add a lot of flowers and shrubs and at least a few trees, I think. We're also planning on leaving space to build another garden bed, if we so choose.

Also, I got the sprinklers turned back on finally. I had cracked the valve last year by improperly winterizing, and my dad helped me replace it. We think we may actually need to replace the whole thing, since there's a bit of dripping going on right now. We'll see, though. It's a relatively minor problem, given that the sprinklers sprinkle and the drippers drip.

Finally, we've also decided that we're going to hire out the remainder of the master bathroom. We simply don't have the time or the expertise to finish it ourselves in anything like the timeframe we want, and it's holding up everything else in the house. We're going to have to find electricians and drywall guys and tile guys and who knows what all other kinds of guys. There will be a lot of guys. But we'll find them and we'll get everything all the way taken care of. I'll certainly keep you posted as that progresses.

Other than that, not much has been going on. We have some plants in the yard doing well, some not so much. We'll have to see what we like enough to keep and what we get rid of. I'll take pictures this weekend and let everyone know what's going on. Thanks for reading!

Digging up Dirt

A little bit of dirt goes a long way, unless you're trying to fill a giant raised garden bed. Then you need a lot of dirt. Let me demonstrate.

This is the shiny new dirt we purchased. It's all organic, and is all from Colorado, so I'm hoping everything works well together.

This (the dirt in the background, not the draw knife) is the dirt we had left from the hole.

I put a layer a few inches deep right over top of the gravel. That was my buffer so I could mix it up without mixing the gravel into the soil.

This is 3 bags (1.5 cu ft each) of the soil.

This is a bag of the compost (the extra-dark stuff) with more of the fill dirt on top of it. I was really hoping that mixing the soil with the compost with the fill dirt would end up giving me a solid soil base for growing veggies. I have no scientific reason to believe this, but it sort of makes sense.

This is all the different soil mixed up together and spread evenly. This looks good to me. I think I can work with this. Still not enough, though.

I put in the remainder of the bagged soil and added the remainder of the fill dirt. Now I need to mix.

Hoeing ain't easy.

After a lot of work moving dirt back and forth, I got it mixed up well enough that I felt comfortable leaving it alone for the time being. It looks like pretty good dirt, I have to say. It's still a little clumpy, but I'm thinking I'll rake it out a bit more before we plant.

We (meaning my lovely wife) also put together these beautiful hanging baskets. They're small, but they add some color to the yard and make it look a lot more lived-in. I really like them, and I think we'll end up getting more.

We also picked up a couple of super-mini orange trees and got little planters for them. I really hope they do well!

I think they look great sitting on the corners of the garden bed like that, too.

So there you go. Our back yard is still really weedy and not very well taken care of, but we're making progress, and that has to count for something. Thanks for reading!