Early summer, fast growth

We sure did enjoy spring, all 7 days of it. It seems like it went from chilly to 80 degrees in about 2 weeks and we were yet again gypped of the lovely spring weather this area sometimes offers. We actually broke down and turned the AC on for a few days this week. Ridiculous.

The warm spell has definitely helped the plants along, though. We're glad we put the peas in so early, because they are already slowing down in the heat. They have been great -- we harvested about 3 gallons of sugar snaps (they are just about done) and the pod peas are almost ready to pick. Look at how loaded we are:


Our kale is also looking great:


Here's a shot of our beets, eggplants, garlic, and snap peas. The peas will be done before they crowd out the garlic anymore:


Lisa's potatoes:


The chard was a little slow to start, but it's gaining speed now:


And of course our favorites, basil:


peppers (pepper butts already!):


and tomato (this is our best looking Cherokee; it's twice the size of the ones in the garden):

A lot of our tomatoes already have flowers on them. Our magnolia tree is blooming already too. It looks like it may cool down a little this week, but we may be in for a rough summer. I guess it's a good thing everything is coming along early -- it'll probably all be dead by 4th of July!

Finally, an update on our front garden. Quite a few of our seeds didn't take (not surprising) so we had to supplement with some bought plants. We may hunt for some zinnias this weekend. But the nasturtiums and all our other early starts are doing well:


Especially our Dahlias, which look like they could bloom any day now...

A whole new kind of crazy

This weekend, Lisa and I ventured into yet another (and probably our last) home improvement project. The project sounds simple enough: put in new flower bed in front yard. Oh yeah, and in order for it to look right, we'll have to re-direct the front walkway. I attempted to keep it simple, with simple stone edging, slate step stones, and pebbles filling in the space between. We weren't even going to rip up the old walkway. Well, I got a good dose of reality in how not simple my project would be. While at Lowe's buying supplies, one of the guys helping us said he thought we were crazy to take on that project. He obviously doesn't know us.

We mentioned in an earlier post some of the site prep we had been doing. We had almost all the lawn torn out last weekend, in anticipation of this weekend's work:


This project took a lot of supplies. And they were all heavy. We didn't even really get going on the actual project until after 2PM on Saturday, because it took so long to move all that heavy material.

Here's a little slideshow of our weekend...

Ripping out the last bit of lawn (the dirt/compost pile we had delivered earlier that week):


Smoothing and leveling out the walkway:


We then added a thin layer of sand (which was painful to buy, considering our soil is nothing but sand) and weed fabric:


Then came the edging:


Sunday morning -- Lisa makes sure it's all straight:


Another layer of sand. We also started aligning the stepping stones to determine their final layout:

Sand is done and the compost is (somewhat) spread evenly for the garden:


We obviously got very busy for the next 2 phases: setting the stepping stones and filling in with pebbles. We took no photos of either event. Let me tell you, it's harder than it looks. You can't just "sprinkle" a 50 lb. bag of pebbles delicately.

It is incredibly hard to imagine that we went from this:


to this:

in about 24 hours. We are tired. So tired, in fact that we ordered take out for dinner TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW. We're never too tired to cook. Until now.

We did find time to plant a number of our plants in the new garden. Wanting a front garden was how this all got started, but funny how the planting took all of about 30 minutes.



The plants look small now, but hopefully it will be gorgeous in another month or two...