What a month!

First we get a new puppy, who’s taken a fair amount of our time, then it was time to plant our garden. After that… time to sit and reflect on just how much more we’ve done this year than last.

Now it’s down to weeding, watering and defending against the unseen pest who insist on using our garden for their nightly banquets. From chislers (a cross between a prairie dog and a gopher) to some kind of ground-dwelling bug, to mice and rabbits… it’s a never ending battle.

Puppy progress… She’s nearly house-broken. I say nearly because we still must be very vigilant to keep her from making puddles in the house if we don’t get a door open fast enough. She’s doing exceptionally well at “sit” and “come”. We’ve yet to start on “stay” and “down”.

She’s still terrorizing the big dogs, although Sarah (my Finnish Spitz) has her number. One day last week, Sarah took Daisy the puppy to “serious school”. We could hear the yelps. Ever since then, Daisy shows repsect. Kiki, our German Shepherd wuss is still afraid of Daisy. She’ s progressing to a fierce growl when the puppy ventures too close. Of course, Daisy considers her “fair game” whenever possible.

What did we plant?

After our raised beds were done, we tackled a huge project… re-do the two beds bordering the front walkway. It took a couple of weeks, but the result is beautiful. We dug out all the old lava rock, ripped up the plastic weed barrier, dug down 20 inches and sifted every bit of dirt back into the beds. After that, we planted boxwoods, hot poker plants, and geraniums. The boxes are lined on the back with railroad ties we removed from an old barn last fall. We added a short white fence for accent and called it good.

Well, in our 30 x 60 garden, we’ve got beans coming up, tomato plants, eggplant, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, carrots, radishes, assorted bell peppers, a couple kinds of cucumbers, some summer squash, melons, shallots, garlic, and decorative indian corn.

We also have a 32 x 12 corn patch.

Add to that several raised beds with lettuce, spinach, peas, strawberries, onions and garlic.

Mom gave me the greenhouse so I’ve filled it with herbs. I’ve planted onion chives, Chinese garlic chives, thyme, oregano, sage, rosemary, dill, scallions, hot peppers, italian parsely, genovese basil, cilantro and summer savory.

So far, we’ve lost half the melons, cucumbers and squash to some kind of pest. They’ve also been munching in the sweet corn. Something has climbed into the herb boxes and eaten all the summer savory and part of my cilantro.

One of our last eyesores was a woodpile at the end of our driveway. It has also been home to things we’d rather not make comfortable, like snakes, mice, chipmunks, etc. Much of the wood had been stacked there by the previous owner.

Cindy, Bev and I removed the woodpile and replaced it with a nice flower box for Mom. Now she has a place to plant flowers without getting on her hands and knees. Next year, we’ll add a lattice and plant something to grow up the wall.

We’ve begun the addition to the chicken coop, just waiting on more money to finish it off. Then we’ll order more chicks, expecting winter eggs.

Buy me a beer and I'll write more posts more often.

Tags: chicks, coop, front yard, garden, greenhouse, railroad ties, walkway

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Shari Thomas

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