It's becoming a garden!

Remember my two wistful posts back in January about my then bleak and snow-covered backyard which concealed my future garden? Well look at it now! We did rent a sod cutter, and once we got the hang of it, it was pretty easy, except for turning the thing, that took two people. Sorry, no videos or pics of the actual cutting operation, couldn't find the camera at that moment and didn't want to spend time searching for it because we were on the clock, had to have the sod cutter back at the Home Depot by 3 on Saturday or they'd charge extra.

Sadly, to Junior Gardener's disgust and horror, we must have sliced at least fifty million earthworms into a hundred million that day. Running the sod cutter was easy and actually kind of fun, but the really hard (and tedious) part that took the longest was cutting the strips into managable slices (with kitchen knives), rolling them up (avoiding as best we could the half-worms and worm guts, as well as the occasional grub, catapillar, or spider), hoisting the sod rolls into the wheel barrel, carting them to the back of the yard and throwing them onto the skillfully engineered and unexpectedly ginormous sod heap ~ look kids, it's our new sledding hill! The plan is to let the sod compost itself down into rich humus by next spring. Maybe I should cover it with a tarp of some sort.

I could not wait, I just had to go get some of the raised bed frames and arrange them on the fresh ground, just to get a feel of it.

3' wide wood mulch pathways will surround the boxes.

I'm so geeked I can hardly stand it!

Now, add some black plastic edging, landscape fabric, a truckload each of wood mulch and topsoil/peat mix, (and a handful of Motrin), and voila! Le Poteger est ne!

And the really cool thing about this whole thing is--we did it ourselves. And did quite a fine job too if I do say so myself.

...boy am I tired.

You just cant find good help these days

So our neighbor who owns a landscaping business was supposed to strip 1400 square feet of sod out of my backyard last Friday, which he delayed to Monday, which the weather did not permit until the end of the week (which is NOW) and this morning we called him (left a message) as to what time he was coming today, to which he called back half an hour later with a story of how he JUST found out today that his sod-cutter JUST broke and that we would need to pay him an extra $60 on top of the previously agreed-upon price so he could go to Home Depot and rent one. As if!

I got all the raised bed frames put together, some of them out back and some sitting in the garage, I got a shelf full of root-bound brassicas that should have been planted out two weeks ago, and now I have an unexpected date this Saturday with some heavy machinery -I'll rent the thing and do it myself rather than give the bonehead down the street any business after what he pulled. How hard can sod removal be, anyway?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXFU8tHGh3Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yfNamqbBUw&feature=related

It's a Harden-Off Life...

..for us!

Finally!!!

The tooth that came out today has been loose for about a week. The weird part is, it's the other tooth on the left that's been wiggling and driving her nuts for the past 4 months. Guess it still will.

Wood for Raised Beds!! Woo-hoo!!!

The thing that has been trapped inside my imagination since last January is going to become a reality! The design and layout has changed a dozen times over as many months, not to mention the countless sheets of paper sacrificed, done over with version after version....but today was the day that those countless arguments about money and feasibility appear to have come to fruition...Pakman took all the seats out of the mini-van and brought back a load of 2x6's from the lumberyard...the first entry on the material take-off list I had prepared just for this venerable occasion...pics to follow.

Homegrown Tomatoes

Y'know, my mom loved to garden. Even when she wasn't feeling all that great she still had to have something growing in the yard. Maybe that's where I caught the bug from. This morning I saw the date on the calendar and noticed that today is April 10, mom's birthday. Then I went to check the plants and noticed that today is also the day that my one prodigioius Stupice seedling decided to open it's little bloom. Coincidence? probably. But kinda cool too.

Now, time for a song...

(this video was originally downloaded from here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxwjMtI4aoM) but for some unknown reason I couldn't copy the embed code so it was easier to just download it and re-upload it.)

Sweet Sixteen and Fabulous Four

They are alike enough in their personality to be twins in my book. Except that they were born only 12 years apart.

By the way they both say thank you to their Grampa for the lovely cards and contents therein.

Friends and family on Saturday night with the ice cream cake....

And just the immediate family today with homemade cupcakes....yes the little one helped me make them....she left her own personalization on most of them.

Well, that's it for (immediate family) birthdays until July. Good because now just the sight of any kind of cake makes me want to hurl.

Stupice Rhymes with "My Pizza"

So why is it spelled like that?

I potted up a Stupice seedling 10 days ago and man it must have grown a cm per day. Apparently they're not lying when they say 60 days to harvest, because look what I just found~ a teeny tiny flower bud! People talk about getting a ripe tomato by June 1, I may just beat that. This little guy and his tree brothers and sisters are now too tall or my grow light shelf. I hadn't bargained for this. I just repotted them 2 weeks ago and they took off like gangbusters. I need a taller shelf and more grow lights. Should I repot again or wait another week? I don't know! I wish I had a hoop house. No, I wish I had a greenhouse. I wish I lived in Arizona. Wait, no I dont, too hot and dusty, I don't care if its a dry heat, I like it right here. I wonder if it will bloom before May 1. I think I'll pick up some liquid kelp and worm castings next week. Couldn't hurt. In other news, I have revised my garden layout for the umpteenth time. That does it. I'm buying the wood for the raised beds next week.

Well-Groomed Onions

Gave the onion sprouts their first haircut the other day....don't they look just all spiffy with their new do? It's been a week of scrapbook milestones hasn't it. They were growing all crazy falling over each other and up into the growlight, so I must have read once upon a time that you're supposed to snip them down to get them to grow straight and bulk up. So I did. And if I were really frugal and resourceful I would have made a lovely pesto with the trimmings...but I just composted them instead. I know, how original. Oh, and by the way, my Baker Creek order came today, and guess what? They sent me an Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge, just exactly like I ordered! Except that instead of the 10 seeds per pack listed on the site, there must be about 30 in there! The seed envelope was just plain white, instead of sporting the typical Baker Creek artwork, so they must have scrambled and found an outside source. Two thumbs up Baker Creek! Plus, my free bonus seeds are yellow marconi peppers-something I don't already have and will definitely enjoy growing.