My blogging has waned as the weather turned for the better this spring. The sunshine and promise of warmer temperatures has been inspiring me to keep my desk time to a minimum so that I can maximize time outside to wrap up the largest parts of our now 4 year long yard renovation. I'm happy to report that I met my goal of getting my properly built vegetable garden area in place as of Mother's Day Weekend.
I had a tomato garden last year, which sort of tapered off from the boardwalk/patio path down to the yard below. D finished building up a retaining wall for me on the far side of the garden earlier in the spring, so that by May 13th I was able to amend the soil and put my vegetable plants in the ground.
Tomato, cucumber, snap peas, eggplant, jalapeno, strawberries, and several squash is how we started.
Over the last couple weeks, while the plants stretched their roots in their new home, I worked on tidying up the final details of the surrounding area while also completing some larger projects involving the water feature and planting several pots around the yard.
My original intention had been to put at least some of my herbs into the garden space, however we overbought veggie starts, and I'm also not sure of which end of the garden I want to put perennials, so for now the perennials will stay in pots around the yard.
Herbs and strawberries on the left form an arch around the sprinkler control boxes, which covers the boxes but leaves easy access. This weekend I'll be adding the drip lines to the pots. The garden box against the brick wall houses our lettuce and fennel... I've been calling this the salad bar. I might consider moving the strawberries into this box if we decide to put the lettuce in the big garden next year.
About 3 weeks of growth in the garden, the strawberry pot is protected from birds with a pop-up bird net, the tomato, cucumber, and snap peas have supports to grow, and my decorative rock and lavender is in place along the wall.
All this extra time in the garden has left my hands tired by the end of the day, so my embroidery has slowed. I have completed two of my 4 Eastern Bluebird blocks, and am close to finishing block#3.
As the yard work turns from projects to maintenance, I should have more time in the evenings to get in some stitching.
In the world of scrapbooking... my project room has been overlayed with short projects and supplies which need to be straightened and put away before I can get back to progressing on my ephemera albums. My digital scrapbook for 2011 is nearly complete (I need only to pull one still photo from a video clip and then spell-check the whole album and it will be done) I've begun collecting and organizing the digital photos for the 2012 album. The process is a little slower for this year because I began shooting more film in 2012, and including photos from those cameras involves a bit of digging through and organizing old scans. My current plan is to proceed with the standard annual albums until I am "caught up", then go back and do the vacation albums. I should have more consistent blocks of time this summer to work on them, as I plan to find a cozy coffee shop where I can plug away at it while G is in her driving school.
