grass is always greener...

Hurray! The back lawn is starting to look less like a mud pit and more like there is something growing. Three days ago the first shoots started coming up. In a few weeks we will add some more grass seed.
Not a lot of progress in terms of the front lawn. We haent seen any growth yet. We have also not been watering it as dilligently as the back lawn. We will have to increase our lawn watering and get this show on the road before the real summer hits and it gets too hot.

Lawn Care

This weekend my husband and I ripped out the 'lawn' at the back of the house. Creeping violet had completely taken over what was left of an already crummy lawn, and since this is the year of big renovations, we decided to rip up the creepie crawlies and replace it with grass seed. We are expecting perfect weather for germination this week, now all we need to do is keep it watered. The same goes for the front yard, it hasnt rained in a couple of days and so I should make sure it will get some sprinkler action tomorrow.
Next project will be taming the rest of the yard. We are planning on getting a whole bunch of mulch, ripping out the plants we really dont want, and mulching over top. Then moving the mulch where ever we want to add plants. I think it could work, as long as we start early. Even if it is just for a couple of years to stay on top of the weeds and the invasive creeping plants we have in (and also outside of) our flowerbeds

Spring clean up

Luckily for us spring started early this year. We already had some snow drops two weeks ago and last week I saw our first spring corcuses. Because of the lovely weather, last weekend we did a little spring clean up. I racked most of the front yard and flowerbeds, and got most of the old leaves out and spread them out between our two compost bins. And a couple of gardening bags. Since the bare spots in our lawn from last year where still definetly there, we decided we should start the seed earlier this year in the hope that more of a root system would be established by the time the heat of summer started. A therefore went ahead and put down our first bag of grass seed. In a couple of weeks we will go ahead and put the next seeds down in hopes that we wont have to resort to all new sod. We are also thinking of starting this in the backyard, maybe even today. We will see what today brings first though. We have big plans for the garden this year. We want to make it into what we think it can and should be, now the wedding is over we should have more time on our hands, so stay tuned.

Purple Sensation

We have a few really cool flowers in our garden. One of them is a purple spiky flower. It grows on a long thin stem and the flower part looks like a bloomed out dandylion, but instead of seeds, the head is made up of bright purple flowers. They mostly grow from bulbs. I found out today that these flowers are called Allium 'Purple Sensation'. Last year Alan spread the seeds from the seed pods that resulted from local bees' busy work. This year we have many more Alliums than we did the first year. I read that Alliums grown from seed are a lighter colour than ones grown from bulbs. This could very well be true as some of the Allium have a lighter lilac colour compared to the others. Today I cut some along with some cat weed, and put them in a vase on the coffee table. I love having flowers in and around the house, and we are lucky we have enough flowers to do so! Isabelle luckily does not seem to be at all interested in the cat weed, so at least I dont have to worry about her knocking over the vase.
The Mountain Bluet has started to bloom as well, so I cut some of those along with some of the impatients. The impatiens are starting to produce their little seed pods, and they do not have very much longer to bloom. I'm going to have to cut them all back. Hopefully I'll have time to clean up our little 'secret garden' ally between us and the neighbour house a bit and get a good picture. It is filled with impatients and even though it is very wild, I think it looks beautiful.

Photo Session

As promised for a while now, I have some pictures here to show some of the work in progress















The before and after pics of cleaning around and moving of the compost bins.





















preperation of our vegetable garden boxes with compost in anticipation of the veggies.
















Alan's beautifully installed irrigation system, you can see the soaker hose at the top and the placeable loose hoses in the bottom two containers. You can also so the nice trellis he built for the beans and cucumbers

















The irrigation system in action, you can see the lettuce very well on the left, along with some spinach, the rest is still a little tough to see, I will take another picture when the garden is growing in more


this is one of the water barrels which will be used for the rain water irrigation. It is almost finished, and when it is I will also take a picture of this.

















And last but not least the future herb garden 'before'. I have yet to take an after picture, because even though it is planted, I still want to make a stone edge to finish it all of, so I am holding off on the after pic for now.
You can see a corner of our patio and a piece of the gravel path that isn't covered in out of control plant growth. I am slowly weeding the path, but it has been terrible weather for the last few days, so I haven't been out much. Perhaps this weekend.

Veggies here we come!

I went to the market on wednesday and purchased a whole bunch of veggie plants to put in our vegetable garden boxes. It is all just so exciting. It is unbelievable how little money you end up spending compared to the amount of stuff you will be receiving in return. Unreal!
So what did I end up getting and pretty much planting right away you ask? Well, don't let me keep you in suspense.
we have six separate boxes spread over three layers, which will become obvious once I can get pictures inserted here. Box1 contains spinach (last years reseeded itself) as well as curled leaf lettuce and arugula. Box2 contains multiplier onions, garlic and carrots, Box 3 contains green and red peppers, box 4 contains strawberries, as well as jalapeno peppers. Box5 has 3 different kinds of tomatoes and english cucumbers and box 6 has 2 types of beans, peas and broccoli and cauliflower.
Of course 30 minutes after I planted all of this a bunny ran by. Murphies law. said bunny has of yet not discovered the delicious tender lettuce plants, but I am sure that wont be long. Good thing we got lots :D I wish youcould explain to them to wait until the plant is bigger, it is much easier to share at that point. Oh well.
Anyway, it ended up being cheaper to buy flats of 6 plants than just single plants, so I mostly did that so now we have enough to share with Alan's parents.
I am also going to be preparing an herb garden. This year we're going to actually put the herb garden in the garden bed, so this means getting rid of our enemy crawly plant number 1. At least partly so we can put the herbs in and it means reseeding the lawn part that had disappeared thanks to crawly plant #1. However, seen as though I also want to plant thyme next to the veggie garden I am going to be ripping out a whole bunch of crawly plant #2 as well.
Yesterday I planted 8 more carrot seeds next to the soaker hose. We are trying to stagger the carrots so they aren't all ready at the same time. For now we are placing sticks after the last seeds so we know where we stopped. This is until the carrots come up and we can see their leaves. As long as nobody moves the sticks it should work well I think. (thanks Alan :D)
Yesterday I noticed two of poppa's beans poking their heads above ground. Clearly the germination in paper towel works really well and I think we should do that for all future beans and perhaps try it for peas as well.
I am going to find out about the herbs I bought, see what their growing needs are and make sure they get placed in their proper spots. When I have learned more I will post the information.

note to self

I think that the shrub in the front yard underneath the maple tree is bridal wreath spirea, and I think there are a couple of baby bushes along the property. I'm not sure if they are bridal wreath or a different kind of spirea, but I am almost positive they are spirea. I might dig them up and plant them next to the front stairs of the deck.