When I woke up this morning, it was blustery out… windy, chilly and bright sunshine. Went out with the dog and walked about the yard, checking on all my little garden babies and just enjoying the quiet and the morning smells, the just calm freshness of springtime.

I noticed that the wheat was sprouting… that’s cool.

I spent a little time hmming and hawing over where to place my new plants from the plant sale. It was fairly easy to place them all, since I had a pretty good idea in my head before I even bought them, as to what I wanted and where…

Could see that the skyline was not going to hold on to the sunshine, because it was dark and kinda twilighty to the west and south of us. By the time we had breakfast and the girls had gotten out to help me with the patio project, it was already trying to rain a bit and the skies were darker and just kinda not friendly.

We started on the patio once again. Determined to raise up the sand bed to make it nice and level with the concrete so that no one would mistep and stumble on the uneven lip. Six bags of sand went down, 300 pounds of sand! And we still didn’t have enough to finish the job! Ha! We got the first row in though, and it’s nice and level.

We thought we might be able to take the van up to the Lowes, which is only about 2 miles away, but no go. She’s not feeling very well. The air conditioning pump is seizing up and will destroy the serpentine belt. I suspected it was getting too bad yesterday when we went to the college and then the plant sale, but today confirmed it. I didn’t feel like being stranded in the rain, so we just turned her around to make it easier for the boys to tow her in on Monday.

I have the belt and already have paid for part of the repair, but my mechanics, one of them was in the hospital this week when I was going to drop it off, and we had to wait till he was better. I hope he’s doing better now. I can handle being without a car, but it does put a little crimp in my style you know.

Besides…. WE NEED MORE SAND!

So we decided to plant plants instead. Jessy and Maggie are game helpers… so we started to dig and fool with the new plants.

All the little Siberian iris look so pretty in their new beds. A couple have little buds starting…. it won’t be long before they are blooming and I just can’t wait. I feel like my gardening life has been on hold for 5 years! It feels awesome right now to watch everything coming to life. I’m impatient for the place to turn into a real garden of Eden…

The bleeding heart found a nice little shady spot with some new hosta friends… it’s a very pretty plant.

We were so excited to see that the radishes are FINALLY sprouting! How lovely! The will be such fun to grow, since they grow so quickly. Maggie was very thrilled and I caught her on her knees examining the little dudes and talking to them… hahaha… she’s SO got the gardening bug.

Jessy came out and helped and we planted two varieties of carrots, sugar snap peas and bush and pole beans in the raised beds, as well as a row of sunflowers. I love sunflowers and I have the worse luck growing them! I’m miserable at it. At least I always have been. I always get like one little pack and plant them all in the same place and some little critter comes and eats them all down when they are about oh 2 or 3 weeks old. I’m lucky to get like ONE to grow.

So this year, I’m ready. This is the best soil I’ve ever had to work with, it’s just yummy crumbly brown gold… with worms and good mulch and just fantastic. And I bought 4 packages of mammoth sunflower seeds. From Martha Stewart no less. And I gave the girls instructions to each take a pack and I as well… and an extra for good luck and said plant them ALL OVER! In the back parts of the flower beds, here and there, all over. We are going to have sunflowers if it kills me! We will have back-ups and extras all over the place. In all the flower beds, in a little row in the raised beds, back by the shed, everywhere. By gum, I’m gonna have a few giant flowers in the moby yard, somewhere….

The big mature lilacs at the back of my lot are blooming…. oh my gosh, I am in heaven. I love just going back there and looking at them, all huge and swollen with the most perfect two shades of purple. And the scent… ah, it’s stunning. Just lovely. I can’t wait for my own three bushes nearer to the moby will get going. The two new ones are just going gang busters, they have put out a TON of green growth. They love where they are! And the one reject I got 75% off at the end of the year last season, it’s doing really nice and has a whole spray of blooms coming in too! I’m surprised it’s blooming later than the old ones out back, but I suspect it’s because it’s in a little shadery spot and well, it’s younger. Which is fine with me, since that just extends the time that I get to have lilacs blooming around me! Wonderful!

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