Today Simon and I turned over the front flower/tomato garden with a shovel. Okay, I did it while Simon played on the lawn on a blanket. I turned it over and mixed in a couple bags of Nutrimulch. My arms and back are sore from that much shoveling.
Meanwhile Mommy and Ben were digging her lavender bushes out of our real "Garden" aka the weed patch. She's dug them out and potted them in preparation for tilling the garden. And now all four lavender plants are now in pots. We'll baby them for a couple days before putting at least a couple out by the front flower bed/garden/litterbox, in hopes that the lavender will help keep the neighbors cats out.
We planted the lavender and a few other xeric plants our first year here, but due to the difficulty Da had weeding them while pregnant with Ben, she wasn't able to keep up with the weeds, and the plants were soon well surrounded by weeds.
Actually, most of the plants she planted are still doing fine, though some of them tend to get well hidden by the weeds that rule the garden. But we're only going to save the lavender bushes.
The Garden, we think it was the garden of the previous owners by how well it grows weeds, but on the otherhand it's so sandy it might have been the site of a swing set. The sandy quality of the soil is the main reason we haven't planted a garden there before this year. I've been dumping leaves, small branches from our willows (Anyone need twigs? We've always got a million of them.), and any dirt I dig up from other parts of the yard into it to try to build up some organic materials.
Now we just need to borrow a tiller from some neighbors, and till it all in to see if we have soil, or just sand only capable of growing weeds and xeric plants. Da has already arranged it, so Dad doesn't need to bring his down.
We also started a whole bunch of plants today. We like those little greehouse trays with the peat pellets. Ben liked watching them grow when I filled the trays with water. We have tomatos, zuchini, beans, crookneck squash, oregeno, and basil planted so far. By mid April they should be ready to transplant to either the garden, or the flowerbed/garden we've used the last couple years.
So we all enjoyed the great weather today, while working/playing in the yard. I'm sure it won't be the last time if the weather holds. The biggest problem will be avoiding the temptation to put plants or seeds into the ground too early.
