Do you ever feel like there is not enough time in the day? We moved into our current residence last August and there was much to do. The yard is a mostly blank slate (with crazy thistles running wild everywhere), the basement is unfinished and I don't even want to talk about the awful carpet...
As we were trying to wrap things up with the basement summer was rapidly encroaching on us. My husband was getting ready to leave for three week in Oklahoma and the garden was still not in with both of us agreeing that we definitely wanted one.
So here comes Memorial day weekend and I am scrambling to get supplies because I can't just make a normal garden. We have bunnies and ground squirrels not to mention two dogs over 50#s in the house. I fought with those dogs the last few years to convince them to leave the ripe veggies for us and to stop using the garden as a drag race track. So this year I decided to build garden boxes like I had at the last house, only twice as high (20 inches). I knew it wouldn't be a problem because we have an enormous pile of dirt under the deck from installing the dog kennel which was also incomplete come summer time.
The guys at lowes know me by sight with the basement supplies we bought, and how many women shop at lowes on a week day with a one month old strapped to their chest. So I finally get there and enlist the help of a strong young man to pull 12 2x10x12 planks for me and haul them over to the lumber cutting station (better them then me with my history of run ins with sharp objects.)
I finally got the boxes assembled while the baby napped inside and then it took me several days of wheeling carts of soil across the back yard to get each box filled to the top of the bottom board. I planted the garden the first weekend in June with a rain storm eminent and the baby fussing in his bouncer next to the garden box. In the meantime the grass in the back yard is up over my ankles (but more on that in my installment on yard equipment).
I even have the rain barrel hooked up. It may take longer to water because you are forced to use gravity but the system is in place, plants are growing, still more work to do... the tomato plants are growing sideways across the boxes as I have yet to get cages and the peas are all vining onto each other. So I am still feeling the pressure for success, but noting the little tomatoes and foot high corn stalks so feeling good about thing.
Then last weekend my neighbor comes over and says get your shovel and wagon... the neighbor around the corner is tearing out her perennial garden and I think ok, cool... I am all about free plants and I have empty planters running down both sides of my house as well as the back yard. As always I bite off more that I have time to chew.
So last night I have the baby out in gale force winds but comfortable temps because the 90 degree 85% humidity weather has finally gone away and I am installing my weed barriers. I forgot to buy enough pegs to tack it down as it wraps itself around my body, but happen to have a great rock pile in the back yard to help out with that, so while talking to the same neighbor that convinced me it was a good idea to fill my yard wagon up with perennials in the first place I got one bed planted.
Then I am standing there looking at the wagon, that still seems full to the brim as the sun sets on another day and the baby is telling me it is time to eat and I realize what I will be doing with the next two evenings before I head to the lake for some R&R. But it is all worth it, because I saved the life of some plants, and will have nice planters to show for my efforts so long as I don't collapse in the side yard in the process.
No comments:
Post a Comment