Brooke's garden

So, the other day, I decided to mow the backyard. The weeds needed to go. So I did the backyard while Brenna napped while Brooke was at school. It wasn't too bad so after Brad got home, I decided I would go ahead and do the front yard. MUCH harder with much worse outcomes. There was so much leaves and dust that as soon as I got through my chest was hurting. I immediately took a warm bath for a while (to try to get the humidity to help), but it didn't seem to matter. I was sick. Still am to some degree. You know, the whole can't breathe, coughing up a lung, stuffy head fever so I can't rest kinda sick. Ugh. It sucks.

But don't let that stop me. It was, after all, a weekend. And that means its our only 'time' to get stuff done around the house. Soooo...out to work we go!

The seedlings in the house finally began to show enough sprouts that we let them go outside to join the rest of their friends in the outside garden.

One of those sprouts, is the corn. Which we're just having fun with this year and decided to let Brooke take on. The corn is going in her 'flower'bed. We figure she'll like to see it get so tall, etc. So, here she is, planting her corn. :-)And watering it with her watering can...And the finished product (which is kinda hard to see)...Now, for that before and after picture I promised. This was our garden last year (and the years before)... And here's our garden this year!...Quite a BIG difference. Anyway, over here are our watermelon sprouts and squash, and we're not quite done because the only ones still too little to come out yet will go here...the cantaloupe and lettuce. The other side, with (L-R) herbs, onions, strawberries (bagged), spinach, jalapenos, peppers (different varieties)And here we have our tomatos (different varieties) and beans. We finally got them staked up with the endless supply of bamboo we have fortunate use of.

We also finished our front flowerbed this weekend. While I included some Gerber daisies (which my mom swears to me will make it year after year....we'll see), I filled the bed with strawberry plants (not bagged). Strawberry plants are pretty too when they flower so why not make the flowerbed functional too?

So we're pretty much done with our garden and all our beds. You may notice in the above picture, we also got the brick walkway laid back down around the garden (that was Brad's job). I pruned away at the rose bushes in the front as well, so they are set and ready to bloom. Still waiting to get my 2 apple trees (they still have little selection here in town and I may have to order the varieties I want) and will plant the rest of the indoor sprouts once they are big enough. But other than that, we are done! It feels good to have it all done so 'early' this year. :-)