In an effort to be more on top of things (a life-long pursuit, I'm sure), I'm posting. I've been working on my garden and yard lately. It's been sooooo nice and nothing motivates me more than sunshine!! The problem with gardening is that I'm so bad at it. The whole thing is like learning a foreign language to me. Needless to say, I'm not a very quick study. :( I've always killed plants, usually by under watering. What can I say, I forget. It's usually a long, slow, torturous death fro the plant. I bring it to the brink of death only to revive it. I repeat this cycle until it finally croaks. As for the yard, I think the condition of our soil is less than even mediocre. I planted some bulbs 3 years ago and still only get one or 2 of them to bloom. I'm actually glad I've waited this long to plant major things, as I'm sure I would have killed them. I've decided I need to amend the soil anywhere I plant anything! I've taken what will be my "before" pictures of both the front and back yards. The back yard picture isn't that great because it was taken through a screen on the second story while kneeling on a table. I couldn't get the screen off but I didn't try to hard since I didn't want to go plunging through the window. All the rocks in the back yard came out of our yard!! And there's more buried. Anytime we do anything in the yard that required digging, it comes with a huge sense of dread. A 6"x 6" hole will end up 2'x 2' when you're done because you had to remove a boulder or two!



So hopefully I can get some planting done this year. I've started my garden (in the boxes at the top of the yard) and some indoors, but I think it will be another week or 2 before I transplant my seedlings. I do have some beets and carrots coming up, despite the neighborhood cats' best efforts to poop it away!! I've got some plants in the garage to go in soon; raspberries and blackberries among others. I've planted some things in my window boxes out front, but I'm still deciding on what to put around my trees.


I planted sunflowers all along the back fence. I get so excited when I see the dirt cracking to let the seedlings through. Yes, our dirt cracks. I didn't do anything to the soil where I planted them. I just didn't want the hassle. :) I wasn't sure if they would grow, but they are! At least a few of them! :) I'll put up another picture when there is something else growing.