Planted

As of today, it is all in the garden.

Now it just comes to weeding, watering, keeping the birds away, and all of the other miscellaneous efforts that go along with raising plants.

Tilling

The garden is now tilled. I raked all of the excess grass and dirt toward the tree line (if you look close, you can see the dirt is higher). I have since planted 5 or 6 of my seeds/plants. More will be done tomorrow. Topped 80 degrees in the pictures, which I'm sure you all wanted to know.

Also, a thanks to Kelly for the pictures and for continuing to put up with my obsessive gardening during my week off. She's awesome!

Miscellaneous First Day Garden Pics

In order:

I had helpers in this task. Welly wasn't really that excited
Lucy was more excited, but still not that helpful. They actually
ran away when I started slinging dirt and spreading fertilizer.

Speaking of fertilizer...

The River Birch tree. As stated elsewhere, I kept it alive in
a pot all winter and replanted it. They, apparently, grow like
crazy and like wet soil. We'll see how it does...

Some of the seeds...

More seeds...

All of the seeds. In my defense, they were buy one, get one.

The grape vine. I make no claim to know what I am doing, but I
figured that I could give it a shot. We'll see what happens with
that.

Potted Plants

In order:

The first is the plants that I got to put in the planter boxes.
Also, my tomato plants are hanging out, waiting for dirt.


An unknown plant. Mumsy tells me it comes from the cactus
family. Makes sense now how I almost killed it by watering
it over the winter.

Next three photos are assorted petunias. Confession that I didn't
grow the white one. It was, however, on sale.


We next have the three Pepper plants that I found on sale. One is
green, one red, one yellow. They are still in the pots, pending
space.

The final two pics are garlic that I'm growing in pots because
it was to cold when we bought the garlic. It is possible that
those bulbs sparked my desire to garden.

Garden Pics, Pre-ground breaking

Garden. Second is from the Carport, the first is from the corner near the end of the tree line on the side of yard. Note how I had started to break up the ground, thinking I could easily pick up the sod. Oh what a naive fool I was.

Plan, Draft 3 (final)

A final draft because I have about 1/2 of it planted.

Pictures and other info to follow.

Plan, Draft 2

A second draft of the planned planting, which will commence tomorrow.

We'll see how it goes.

The ride

Well, here is where we stand:

I didn't do much on Tuesday. Actually, I got a lot done, just most of it in the house. Including finishing the laminate floors.

Wednesday (yesterday), I started making hay, so to speak. I started by tightening up the planter boxes and putting a coat of paint on them. Gonna take a good deal to get them up to shape, but I think they'll do the trick.

Then, I figured I'd have to get the grass chewed up. So, I rented a 5 hp tiller. I got a good price on it ($25/3 hours) and it worked well. It just worked me out. I wasn't ready for the pull and its dragging me around. It worked, don't get me wrong, I just wasn't planning on having to hold the tiller back in order to get it to bite into the dirt.

Long story short, it worked. I have 4 blisters as evidence of it, but it worked.

Today is a garden-free day. Due, in part, to the fact that I'm still sore after tilling. I have yet to rake the garden and remove some of the grass clippings and then sow. So, if I'm trying to get all of this going by the time I go back to work next week, I'm right on track.

Dang!

So,

Yesterday, I started breaking ground on the garden. I potted several pots worth of flowers (small plants as well as seeds) and some veggies. I also put the River Birch we got from Kelly's grandmother into the front yard. It had been in a pot since Christmas time.

About halfway through the work day, I decided to start breaking the grass to start with the garden. That dang near killed me. I started using a flat shovel on the grass, but that proved to be way too labor intensive. Then, I opted to use a pick and rake to move the grass. That worked, but it wasn't really effective and the pick swinging made my back tense right up.

After about an hour of trying these two, I finally settled upon a system that worked. I used a cultivator (see link here) to pick up the grass and cultivate but that was toward the end of my effective day and took a good deal out of me. I was however able to save some grass for sod. I'm leaning toward renting a power tiller (see here) in order to save time, me, and give me more time getting the plants in the ground. Which is, after all, the idea.

Today (Monday) rain was predicted so I figured I wouldn't get much gardening done. I was spot on. I did acquire some window boxes (thanks Mumsy!) and have some flowers to put in those. I have an idea for them, but I won't tell anyone (except Kelly) until they get in place. Then, there shall be a mass unveiling. Need to paint them soon and add some hardware to tighten them up. Some screws seem necessary. But, I'm thinking some more flowers in there, as well as some bush beans. More on that to follow.

Project(s)

Broke ground, both on potted plants and on the garden, this afternoon. It is starting to look like what it should be. Pictures will follow.