Sorry I haven't been posting. Spring break hit, and I took advantage of a week of free slave labor. My best friend started school (yea for her, she's going to be a vet tec). I get to watch her kids while she does school. So while I had a herd of small bodies that had nothing to do, we cleaned up the back yard.
If you haven't seen my back yard, I'll have to give you an idea of what we were working with. First of all, nothing has been done to it after construction. A very big hole was dug, a house was built, and the dirt got put back. Well, except the dirt we hauled away. So now there are rocks littering the entire back yard.
My sprinkler system also got dug up by a track hoe. My main line went right through the middle of the hole, and you got it, now all of my hard work of building a sprinkler system is for nothing. So there is no way to watter back there except by hand.
Then the weeds decided to grow. They were prolific too. Let's put it this way: you could lose a kid back there. The kids finally cleared a small pathway so they could leave the house. My friend Gabe would use it when he came over to work. He complained that the weeds were taller than he was.
So I took advantage of the fact that the weeds all died during the winter. We raked up most of them. There are still a few to go. We pruned the grapes, cleaned up most of that (let's admit it, nothing ever gets completely finished around here!). There were so many rocks we started building rock walls around where we were going to plant. So now the kids have clearly defined borders around the gardens so they know where to step (or rather, run).
Then Dad (thank goodness for Dads with heavy equipment) showed up with his rototiller and tilled the gardens. I say gardens, because we are using the original garden, but we also built two more closer to the house where the grass used to be, a small one for lettuce by the kids' playground, and a section for corn out between the peach trees. We would have done more but even Dad's heavy duty tiller couldn't get through the rocks in some areas of the yard.
Dad tilled Saturday evening. Monday late afternoon we planted the spring garden. I started by attempting to put in the T-posts for where I'm going to put fencing for the peas and beans and tomatoes to climb. My dear sweet neighbor Gabe enjoyed laughing at me over our shared fence. He eventually felt bad for me and came over and put all of my posts in. I was grateful to him for that. I would have been there all evening!
We put in potatoes, lettuce, onions, peas, sugar snap peas, and carrots. Fortunately the kids were excited enough to plant that I had three helpers. We had to send the baby inside because it was too cold, but she loved her few minutes out with the big kids. I gave the kids sticks the right length and sent them out to plant the peas and potatoes while I did the lettuce, onions, and carrots. They were actually very helpful.
As we were planting, it started to sprinkle. As we finished, it started to get heavier. After I got the tools put away and everything in the house, it really started to rain. By the time I got in, I had dripping wet hair and water running down my neck. Fortunately I did get everything covered before the dirt turned to mud. I was very grateful to God for contributing to the process by watering everything for me as I haven't figured out how to water the gardens yet.. By this morning, everything was covered with a layer of snow.Hopefully, the seeds can handle it.
After we got in and had dinner, our familiy home evening consisted of praying for the garden and reading a chapter of Fablehaven (we're almost done with book 2 as a familiy). Now I have to warn you. Be careful when praying over a garden. It makes me a little nervous to do that because every time I do I have produce coming out my ears. But this year I need it so we went ahead and did it.
By the way, if anyone ever sees a good deal on canning lids, please let me know. I'm out. I usually buy them by the case, but I've managed to use them up. So if all goes well, I'll need a lot.
Well anyway, enough chatting. I've got to get back to work. I'll keep you posted!
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