Gardening!

What a beautiful day!

Shrike, Peeper and I spent most of it out in the yard, getting our garden started. We've been composting since probably 2004 or 2005 and for the first time, we were able to use our own compost (plus last year's soil, plus peat moss) for everything. We might have to buy a bit for the potatoes that we've yet to plant, but we had enough to do 20 square feet of raised beds, plus a window box and the circle for the sunflower house.

Planted: Carrot (multicolor), watermelon (sugar baby), cantaloupe (rock something-or-other) and sunflower (3 different sized mixes), spinach (I have no idea, it's an old packet with the top trimmed off, probably won't even sprout) seeds.

Transplanted: Tomato (early girl - from Lowes) and Pumpkin (triple treat - started from seed)

Left to do: Start bellpepper seeds inside (Usually buy plants, but the Easter Bunny brought multi-color mix seeds), Plant potatoes (in cheapo laundry baskets not yet bought), buy and plant Mammoth Sunflower seeds amongst what's already planted.

That's less variety than we've grown the past couple of years, but we just joined the Fulton Farm CSA (half a share) so we figure since we'll already be overrun with veggies, we should cut back on what we're growing ourselves.

I shoveled a couple of wheel barrows full of compost from the bin (and Shrike shoveled another one or two) and dumped it on top of last year's soil in the 4' x 4' and two 2' x 2' raised beds, along with a bunch of peat, and then did a whole lot of shoveling and pitchforking to mix it all up.

We also cut out some grass that's regrown in the sunflower house circle (the perimeter of a circle, about 6' in diameter) and dumped compost in it.

We also made a tomato cage / aluminum foil / pie pan scare-robin (my idea) for the sunflower house and a paper towel roll / peanut butter / birdseed feeder (Peeper's idea) to lure them elsewhere.

This is the rest of the bird seed that we poured out for the feeder. Peeper put it out in the middle of the yard to lure the birds away from the sunflowers, then she added the stick "So they can have a seat and enjoy their snack."

We're going to convert our "tater tower" into two or three tater baskets, so when we buy those, we'll have to shovel out the rest of that soil (took some of it for the sunflowers) and add some peat and compost and/or potting soil (probably store-bought) before planting those. That part shouldn't be too hard, just a matter of getting it done.

That's the most manual labor I've done in ages and I'm going to be one hurting mama tomorrow, but for now, I'm tired-in-a-good-way, freshly showered and starving with a couple of BOGO birthday coupons burning a hole in my inbox.