Less Gardening For Me This Year

I'm making a lot of changes in my life these days.  Among them are measures to make my life easier.  Last fall I decided to ditch the decrepit square foot containers and skip that this year.

My tomatoes didn't really produce the last couple of years.  And last year I bought better quality plants.  *shaking head*  The lettuce was iffy.  The carrots never grew, nor the onions.  We're eating more organics these days, but I'm finding great deals in the stores that make vegetable gardening moot.  Sort of.

I do, however, enjoy fresh herbs.  I bought a healthy chive plant from the grocery store last fall, but I put it at the kitchen window, which faces north, and it died from low light and cold.  I have no south-facing windows, by the way, except a skylight in the boys' bathroom (ew!).  So this year I decided to start thyme and rosemary from seeds, and they are just beginning to come up, by an east-facing window, hidden behind the TV.  (I tell you, this house is just not set up for plants!)  I used organic seed starter potting mix with fertilizer.  Sounds like an oxymoron, but it's working well.

Also starting are aubrieta, which are perennials, so a good start will assure years of beauty, right?  RIGHT?  The package shows purple flowers, which will go nicely with the rest of the yard.  Fingers crossed.

I want to share what my DH got me for my birthday.  It's the perfect thing!

It's a stepping stone!  There are some really cool things about this.  Our house is medium/dark green with cream trim and patio awning; there is a faux green finish to the "stone" with creamy-gold accents.  We have bright orange day lilies in our yard; this brings that element to another part of the yard.  Many of the accent flowers in our yard are purple; the purple butterfly is perfect.  And who knows....maybe that butterfly will finally attract purple martins to the house!  We do have a stepping-stone path through the flower bed under the crabapple tree.  There is a bare spot in another part of that bed, and this will fit it just fine, thankyouverymuch.  Thanks, Honey!

Share your garden pics and enjoy the others at  Garden Tuesday.

Squirrel Mischief!

Omigosh!  I'm so sorry, garden peeps!  Things got really, REALLY crazy last fall, and I dropped the ball.  Sorry!

First, let me share with you some squirrel mischief! Yes, more rodents to join the rabbitsssss.  Here's what they did to our lawn in one day/night/morning in October.

We weren't sure what exactly did it at first.  But a friend in another part of town actually caught a squirrel in the act, doing the same in his yard!  In broad daylight!  The grass is pulled up and peeled back, exposing the soil and roots, and we don't know why.  The grass surrounding the digging is weirdly dead.  We have not had issues with grubs in this area, the lawn was quite healthy, and there were no nuts buried there.

I tamped down the "squirrel divots" and prayed for the best.  But the darn animal came back night after night.  Are squirrels really nocturnal?  Anyway, we overseeded, but the turf is still a mess.  So we decided to have a lawn care company take care of our grub control and fertilizing this year, to be sure the right stuff goes down at the right time, in the right spots.  We crunched the numbers and found it's a good deal for us this year, especially with visitors coming in May and some other work being done.


The playfort is gone, and we had the small tree taken down, as well.  The little purple tree never really flourished in the 12 years we've been here (planted before we got here); arborist said the species is prone to infestation.  Next month we'll have its stump ground, along with an older stump outside the fence.  I was encouraged to plant another tree about 5 feet from where the other one was, so we'll be getting a real tree (not a sapling this time) in the ground, too.

And we will have the crabapple tree addressed.  This year it gets a long-overdue haircut (or rather, amputation) by the arborist.  I was told last fall that it wouldn't hurt it to cut way back.  Another interesting thing is about the bark.  Remember how I was concerned about it splitting?  The tree guy said it was okay, and normal, even.  Okie-dokie, then.  He was more interested in the amount of fruit.  Well, it's all gone now, thanks to the Nebraska winds.

So we start the spring season (okay, it's a week away) with big projects.  I've got herb and flower seedlings started inside, but that's another post.