Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Simply because it's spring . . .

The last two weeks have been so nice; a few stormy days but mostly sunny and warm and springtimey. We've been out in the yard almost every day and these are some of the things we've gotten done.



Last year we planted 12 blackberry plants. I mentioned to Paul that eventually I'd like a little arbor over them so the branches would be off the ground. The next day he had put this up. I wasn't successful in my effort to take pictures of the entire thing. It's about 50 feet long. Isn't it great?!?





















We also worked on the garden. We weeded. Then we brought in about 12 wheelbarrows of compost that we made ourselves, thank you very much. (We only used about half of it.) We added plant fertilizer as well and then stirred it all into the dirt.























Next, we leveled it and then we were ready to plant. We planted sunflowers, green beans, cilantro, basil, squash, cantaloupe, artichokes, peas, carrots, and 30 tomato plants. I hope this garden does better than our winter garden. Cross your fingers.

The next project was to finally paint the swing set we inherited with the house. Grandpa Mac and the boys fixed it up last summer but it was still ugly. It isn't very imaginative but at least it looks finished and I am happy when I look outside. We also painted the chicken coop, we've been meaning to get to that for a long time too. It feels so good to have these projects completed! Here are the befores and afters.



































We also weeded old flower beds and dug new flower beds and planted lots and lots of flowers, mostly bulbs.

I'm anxious to see what will come from all this work.

5 comments:

Mindi said...

that yard is GINORMOUS!!! i guess everything is really bigger and better in texas. looks like it will be abfab.

Mindi said...

rach--go to www.thesparksfamily22.blogspot.com to check out something i thought you would be interested in!

R-Eight said...

Thanks for the heads up Mind.

jordan said...

when your kids do something REALLY bad. They'll have to go "weed the blackberries."

R-Eight said...

I've thought of that more than once since we put in the blackberries. I try to tell my family about weeding the grapes but they think I'm exaggerating.