Up here in Massachusetts we are starting to see the very first hints of lawns coming back to life and trees getting ready to bud, finally! My swimming pool appears to have returned to water instead of a 10,000 gallon block of ice.
This morning at 7 am, after seeing my neighbors outside in their yards, I started up my new leaf blower and began the tedious chore of removing dog poop from my front and side lawn. I have found that it is my easier, physically, to blow it away while still frozen, then to attempt to remove it after the thawing process.
I always swore that ll of my neighbors dogs came to my yard to do their business. Many of them are outside, not restrained in any manner during the work day. I swear it's their way of tormenting my poor Tess, as she is stuck in the kitchen while I'm at work, kinda like a doggy na-na-na. My six weeks home recovering from my surgery this winter confirmed that theory. I can't count the number of times I was yelling at dogs to get out of my yard!
Anyway, the dog poop removal process has been completed in 1 1/2 hours, and I'm now waiting for the lawn to thaw out, so I can remove any leaves and tree debris that had the nerve to fall after my last venture out there removing them around Thanksgiving.
I'll tell you it feels good to be doing something besides removing snow outside!!!!!! The great frozen northeast is starting it's transition back to green!
That's exactly what we have planned for tomorrow, Tess - frozen poop blowing! We love to sit in the back garden, even when it's still kind of cold, but with all the poop on the patio, it's a little unwelcoming. We learned to blow it off while it's still solid, then bury it under the cedar hedge. It's pretty good fertilizer.
My crocus are up! And there's only snow left in the plough piles at the shopping centre. Spring is almost here!!!!!
we just started looking at flowers and stuff for out yard. I am SO not a green thumb though. Though I want to put in some vegetables, whoever had this house before us made some pretty nice beds. We are still waiting to see what else will come out of some, already it looks like we have a few tulip plants in the front..
We just gpt back from my little one's 2nd birthday party. I'd sort of forgotten about it when planning the poop-blowing, silly me. We had tea sandwiches - cucumber, egg salad and strawberry cream cheese, tea, fruit and cake. There was another little one, 21 months old, who had a scream that would clear sinuses. We left after about the 15th screech. After much eye rolling, my son finally said something to the mother.
Her birthday is really on Tuesday, so we'll have another little celebration then, without the uncles who will all be at work.
My mother was sitting in a chair when I went to visit her earlier! And dressed!! What a blessed relief to see her up and out of that hospital bed. She got the news that her private room will be ready Monday morning, which is another really good thing. The other lady sharing the room is a nasty old battleaxe who plays her radio at deafening levels and it's on a solf rock station. If you ask her to turn it down, she tells you to go to hell! My poor little mom!! Good thing her hearing aid battery was low.
Happy spring to all! Shelly, if you're not much good in the green thumb department, go easy on the vegetables and do maybe just tomatoes and cucumbers to start. Years ago we had a little farm up in ski country with a rather large vegetable plot, so I ambitiously planted all sorts of things. What a LOT of work! Weeding alone took up hours every week, and then pests were a problem as well. The kids liked the asparagus, raspberries and plums, but after having to pick them all, then smell the cottage fill up day after day with the aromas of cooking jams, they turned off those foods forever after.
A few years ago, I had my first attempt at a veggie garden. I placed the containers no some of the stairs I have wrap-around fieldstone stairs going from my side door to my french doors in the back, they are huge!) I have going into my stone courtyard, and it was a major success. I was such a cheat though.... I used miracle grow gardening soil, and funny enough everything grew like weeds. Watering got to be tedious about half way through the summer, but early August my parents sold their house and moved in with me for two months. My father was in heaven watering, and they loved all the fresh tomatoes and cucumbers every night with dinner.
Items I found very easy to grow were tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, peas and peppers. I had bumper crops of all of them. I picked up the plants at a nursery on memorial day weekend. I did not go the seed route. If memory serves me correctly they were not very expensive.
I may have to try it again this year, now that I am in my totally healthy food phase... Within reason, I'm sitting here eating smart food popcorn as I type.
okay, maybe you guys can answer this better then my family in AZ where things are too hot to live. We have a little garden area in our backyard that gets sun but not all day long. Can I still plant tomatoes back there. I was wanting to do tomatoes and cucumbers the first year anyways...Though my next door neighbor whom I just now met after living here for 6 months, told me that last year that bed had a bunch of daffodils that I guess just havent come up yet...If they come up I might move the bulbs once they die off...I hate having the pretty flowers in the back where no one can see them but us. I like to share the pretty....
Anyways, back to the vegetables. I had planned on planting just the tomatoes, cucumbers and I wanted to try some herbs. But I need to do some research I guess on which kind will be the best for that area...
Tess if you ever want a road trip you can come over and help me with my garden...I am SO not a green thumb. But I want to be.
shellyinphx wrote: Tess if you ever want a road trip you can come over and help me with my garden...I am SO not a green thumb. But I want to be.
I will definitely do a little road trip in the next couple of months! We'll have to take a picture and share it with all of our board buddies, I think that we may end-up as the first board members getting together. Although given our close proximity, that makes it a possibility. I think that we are somewhere around different ends of I395.
shellyinphx wrote: okay, maybe you guys can answer this better then my family in AZ where things are too hot to live. We have a little garden area in our backyard that gets sun but not all day long. Can I still plant tomatoes back there.
Shelly, tomatoes like a lot of sun - southern, or south-western exposure is best. The same applies to cucumbers and peppers. You can try planting them there, but you might not have the success you'd like with only partial sun.
