The Great Outdoors

Sorry I haven't posted for so long. It's not that it's been boring around here; it's been absolutely crazy. All 3 boys have been sick since Friday and we've had lots going on. The craziness continues through Thursday, but I need a break. So here are a couple updates ...

This is Evan with his new obsession, the umbrella.

This is the beautiful rainbow that appeared after the lovely little rain showers that kept Evan entertained for so long.

This is my pride and joy. My square foot garden (er, the start of it). I was going to say that this is Phase 1 of my square foot garden project, but it's more like Phase 3 or 5 or so. This large area started out as a big, hilly mess of weeds and rocks (LOTS of rocks) and trash. The people before us used this area for RV parking with a dog run in one corner. I picked up rocks (LOTS of rocks), Casey tilled it up, I picked up more rocks (LOTS more rocks), then started leveling it out ... not a fun task! Thanks to the sandbox (partially seen on the right), the dirt/sand/grass was built up incredibly high on that one side and I had a very difficult time leveling it out. It's still not completely level, but good enough. Oh yeah, and that's our new peach tree. YEA!

After all that, I got to work building my square foot gardening boxes (kinda time-consuming). I rolled out that garden cloth stuff and staked it down, then filled the boxes with the special mixture of compost, peat moss and vermiculite (also kinda time-consuming). Then Evan helped me plant seeds and a few starts (very time consuming, but he enjoyed it and loves to see the "planets" growing). Within a few short days, seeds were germinating.

I know, I know, I don't have this box marked out in square feet, but we all know how tomatoes get crazy big and I don't mind have a box devoted purely to tomatoes--Celebrity, Early Girl and a variety of cherry tomatoes--and one basil plant (1 died before I transplanted ... not a good start).

Here is what is planted in the box below:
1 watermelon (transplant)
2 corn
2 cucumbers (1 is transplant)
9 peas
1 cauliflower
18 beans
1 broccoli
4 lettuce (2 varieties)
1 cantaloupe (transplant)
1 zucchini
16(?) carrots
1 squash
various radishes interspersed
several garlic chives (pest control ... and eating, I suppose)
several nasturtiums (also for pest control)
Can you believe that? I'm so excited about this. And the best part ... virtually NO weeding! Yea, serious. This may be as far as I get this year, but I'm surprised I got even this much done. It was hard work, but I look forward to wondrous results. And in the next few years I'll finish up this garden area. Eventually I'll have more boxes. I'm planning some skinnier ones that will be devoted solely to raspberries (if I can get them to live) and strawberries since they both spread so much. And a couple more so I can do more canning and freezing and such. And I'll be putting some sort of bricks or square paving stones around each box, adding a path of bricks or paving stones from the lawn to the gate (which will someday be a wooden fence) and then filling in all the spaces with small river rocks or something. The vision is beautiful. Hopefully I'll be able to realize it and do so within a year or two.