Why I'm spending Memorial Day Lying on my Tiger-Balm Covered Back Trying Not to Move.
It started out innocently enough: I was blessed with a three day weekend and couldn't wait to get into the garden. Three days! That's some 36 hours, minus a few for sleeping, eating, and cleaning up the Busse family footstone at Sunset Memorial Park.
So, work I did!
First and foremost, I hung the bunting. Some people get happy over firecrackers, some people squeal with delight over an inflatable Santa for the front yard, some people can't get enough of the Halloween decorations. For me, it's flag bunting. I can't think of anything more satisfying than looking at my cute little white house draped in the ol' red white and blue! It must have something to do with the southern roots of part of the family, because while I see it some up north, it's not as prevalent. Except for the 4600 block of 18th Avenue!
I installed another 50 feet of landscape edging, this time around the strawberries and raspberries. I came about 20 feet short of completely edging the back yard but I think that will have to wait until next month-we're really taking the budgeting seriously and that means some projects will just have to be spread out over the summer.
The master plan is to gradually get rid of the lawn, since it doesn't do really well in the back yard. We're working backwards, starting with installing and edging the beds bordering the perimeter, so we know how much we have left.
The next step is to build and install the bocce court, but that makes my back hurt just thinking about it. Maybe next month, and maybe mostly using the husband's and friends' backs. Ouch. After the bocce court is in, we'll know what we have left, and whether we want to install gravel paths (they look great at Prince Charles' place, but what doesn't?!), a patio of some sort, give a little bit of grass another chance, or anything else.
I laid 30 cubic feet of mulch, in the new and old beds, after finding a scream of a deal at Hope Depot. The amazing thing is that I could probably go through at least another 15 cubic feet of mulch! In the future, for us locals, the City of Minneapolis has a great (read: free) woodchip program at the parks, but we went to several different sites and discovered they were all out. Since I had spent most of the past weekend pulling weeds, I wasn't willing to go any longer without mulch, so we bit the bullet and bought some.
Looks so neat and tidy, doesn't it?
I also finished planting the herb garden, which we keep in front of the house so certain 4-legged members of the household don't disturb the contents.
I laid two more brick paths in the veggie garden, put some tin foil strips out to try to keep the birds away from my bean seeds, and weeded the whole thing. Then, of course, the day proved to be a windy one and all of the dreaded helicopters from the neighbor's maple tree came down by the thousands.
The peppers got planted (the Mulato and Hot Portugal from the previous post) and I replaced two tomatoes that got stolen from either squirrels or birds. I lost a Cherokee Purple and an Amish Paste, but lucked into finding San Marzano tomatoes at Mother Earth Gardens. I can guarantee a post on grilled pizzas in the future.
Last but not least, we gave BOTH dogs a bath-and after that point we all said enough was enough and came inside, watched a movie, and went to bed!
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