Life Is Crazy

I can't believe it has been 11 days since my last post. Life has been crazy. Insane. Almost as weird as the weather. Here are a few of the photos I took in my yard yesterday. Let's not forget that it IS December! The saddest part was cutting these flowers and throwing them away. I haven't had the heart to cut a few of them. My Siberian Iris has bloomed for the first time in the 2 years since I planted it. Does anyone know if I have to cut it down? Also, as you can see in the last photo, my Spring bulbs are sprouting. All over my front flower bed. What do I do?

Oh ya, and whoever thought I would have fresh garden strawberries in December? and look at that green green grass. You would have guess this photo was taken in June, not December.

Finally planted!

I just finished planting my 400th bulb, but who's counting? Today it only took several hours and digging up several chunks of cement along with one nearly full size brick (I love how contractors like to hide what they are to lazy to throw away), a set of sore hands and not one, two, three or four, but FIVE charley horses! I hope Alan will be satisfied with the results in the spring, otherwise he may force me to plant twice as many next fall. Or, how about I make him plant them next time so he understands the tedious and sometimes painful process.

Note to self: Next time wear the garden shoes I bought for this purpose, instead of my work shoes. Arrgh!

Our Saturday Accomplishments

Last Saturday Alan and I hit the nursery again. As soon as we got in the car one of the kids said, "Oh no, are we going to J & J again?". They know the Saturday routine. Last week we brought along a trailer and filled it full of trees and a few more plants. I had decided that I wanted phlox, crazy daisies and daylilies in our new flower beds. We also ended up purchasing a redbud tree, a honeylocust and an ash. I also now have 400 bulbs that I need to plant, but I want a few bushes pulled up before I get to them. Will the list never end?

This Saturday I finally got around to planting the plants we bought last week and as a surprise to the kids, we didn't hit J & J. Instead I hit Lowes ... twice. They had some good deals, although their daylilies seemed a bit root bound, as can happen when purchasing plants for a good deal in the fall. They looked great however, and I hope they survive.

I'll post some "real" pictures tomorrow on the progress that we are making. It definitely spruced up the area, but we still have a long way to go. I do hate the soil in our yard and we have a few "dead zones" where everything we plant seems to die on us. As I was working in our new flower bed I kept smelling something putrid. I kept thinking since I was right next to the fence, it was my neighbor's dog poop, but no, it is our dirt. It smells like the Great Salt Lake on it's bad day. I would love to take a back hoe, dig 2-3 feet deep and replace all of the soil with the soft top soil I long for. If only we had a trail of money as long as my wish list. :)

How does your garden grow?

A little over a month now has passed since I transplanted my tomato plants (again) to their current location. They're doing quite well - nearing four feet tall. My goal is grow tomatoes as large and bountiful as Mike Roberts who lives on 1000 West. His grow upwards of six feet tall. The trick is to get the tomatoes to into a seven day watering schedule. Years previously, we'd water the garden daily or every other day, but according to Mike. Roberts, tomato plants do better with one good watering a week.

We also have a cabbage plant that has grown to the size of a small Volkswagon bug. Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration, but it's getting quite big. I'm sure it's past harvesting, so we'll just keep growing it to see how big it gets. We have two other cabbage plants that we'll harvest and take inside to stare at until one of us feels compelled to Google a recipe that includes cabbage. If you have a recipe for cabbage, please send it over. We tend to get an assortment of seeds for veggies that we don't eat from primary and school. Those darn tithing and tax dollars at work! Arrghh!

A Path Emerges

It was a long hot and productive Saturday for us. Alan picked up a compacter and a cubic yard of sand at 9 am and the work commenced on our path/garden area. Here are some of the pictures showing it's progress. We both finished the day at about 9:30 pm with all of the path complete, except for the circle at the end. We will need to do one more flagstone run and hope to have it all done on Monday evening. Today Alan and I are both sore and sunburned, but it was definitely worth it!