Dandelion Farm

I have 7 tomato plants (early girl, lemon boy, a couple of mystery “Best of Show”, cherry, sweet 100) and a tomatillo plant in the ground underneath the wall-o-waters. There are even blossoms on a couple of the tomato plants.

I took some of my broccoli seedlings out too, they’re the dark ones in the foreground the light frost nipped ones at the ones from the store.

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April Showers Bring May Flowers

I’ve been waiting for a good rainstorm so I could post this, and today we had a beautiful refreshing storm that left everything smelling clean and fresh. I was busy driving, and didn’t have my camera with me to capture the storm only the after of a cloudy sky and drops on the crabapple tree.

If you’ve been reading for a while, you know that I’ve had just a touch of spring fever this year.

It is very renewing and spiritual for me to watch the world wake up each spring. Colorless deserts come to life and the cold snow filled scenes turn green, yellow, pink, and purple. Birds are singing and the air smells fresher.

We dig out softball mitts, soccer balls, bats, bikes, and kites. If it’s even slightly reasonable to be outside, we are.

One thing I’m trying to do this year that I haven’t done in the past is spring clean. Honestly, it’s not going so well but I’m trying. Spring cleaning is part of what spurred this post because DrGreene.com is having a Seventh Generation spring cleaning contest. I’d have to clean if I won right?

Go ahead, go on and enter I won’t care much that it lowers my chances of winning.

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Dandelion Farm

After working in the yard today and realizing how many dandelions we have around I’ve decided to name the garden Dandelion Farm. If anyone is looking for dandelion seeds let me know, I’m the place to go.

As for the garden update, things are going well. Peas have just barely sprouted, I have some buds on one of the tomato plants. It’s tall and above the lights, so I’m not sure how that’s going to work. I’m not sure if planting it outside with a wall-o-water will be best, but that’s the direction I’m leaning.

We cleaned up today, the city is picking up branches etc on our street next week and today was the only day I had to move branches out.

The before picture is a different section of fenceline, I forgot to take a true before picture but that’s how all sides of the backyard use to look. The brush takes up between 5 – 10 feet around the whole yard, that’s a lot of overgrown wasted space that isn’t doing anything other than sucking up the sunlight off of where I’d like to plant more veggies.

Before:

After:

The rhubarb is coming back up there on the right, apparently it didn’t completely die last year and asparagus will be on the left

The pile on the street:

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Life Lessons from the garden

Those of you who have known me for a while know that we’ve spent years trying to reclaim the yard. We’ve doubled the amount of space in the front yard by cutting down some unwieldy shrubs that were growing into the eaves and we’re slowly making progress in the backyard. I’ve learned several lessons along the way that apply to more than my small yard.

You never know what you’ll find. From bugs that you are certain were previously undiscovered to decades old beer cans to foliage that decides to make an appearance as the weeds and overgrowth are tamed. It’s an adventure trying to learn everything that is in the yard. Each year I have new flowers, new bulbs pop up where I thought I knew what was there. There are hidden gems in everyone if you have the time and patience to find it.

Not everything that looks pretty is. A few years ago I spent a lot of time and energy very carefully sheltering and nurturing what I was certain was going to be a beautiful flower. I popped up near some rogue hollyhocks and about the same time. The blooms couldn’t be very far away could they? Turns out that very pampered planted happened to be some burdock that I spent months picking out of the dogs’ fur. Cocker spaniels and burdock do not get along very well. Time spent on projects that aren’t as worthwhile as original thought can have burrs that pop up years down the road

It takes more than cutting down a tree to kill it. I’ve spent the last two years cutting off shoots from a sick and dying apple tree we cut down (along with honeysuckle that has spent decades growing however they wished) It takes a lot more than expected to kill a strong, determined spirit.

I still have a lot of reclaiming to do, I’m guessing that means I’ve got a lot left to learn.

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Took Ginger to the park

For as long as possible, animals have been apart of our lives. When The Scientist was a baby and started having so many medical problems that looked like allergies but didn’t test like them I began to wonder about our decision to have so many animals (cats to keep the mice from the grainery down, the rescued pup, and even some chickens for a while) I was grateful to find out that having animals in the home can be a good thing. Lower rates of asthma made me happy to keep our doors open for the animals in our life.

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Wait for it, it’s coming

Spring is so close to being in full color. The buds are there, the feeling is so strong that you can almost taste it.

*achoo*

Maybe you are just tasting the pollen in the air. Weather channels now have pollen count information so you can know which days are going to be bad in your area. There are a lot of things that can be done for allergies too. A favorite resource for allergies questions I have (and I have a lot!) has been DrGreene.com. He even has an allergy page.

I hope you enjoy your spring.

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The Little Garden That Could — April 4th

I’ve held off on updating this hoping I’ve a warmer update at some point, but now it’s snowing again so I doubt it’s going to happen. Feel free to find humor in this post considering my Hyacinth post on April 2nd. If it had only been a day earlier it might have been the best unplanned April Fool’s joke ever.

Broccoli

Chives

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Are you nice?

Tracy pointed me to a blog post about why nice girls finish unhappy and it made me think of my recent post about being nice all the time

I think my problem with the nice girls finish unhappy post is largely semantics. I disagree with pretty much all of her definition of nice. Reading her definition makes me think of a people pleaser, someone who isn’t true to themselves. Going back to my debate days, I wanted to propose another definition of nice. I don’t have Black’s Law but I do have a link to Yahoo! Education’s definition of nice specifically

3 Exhibiting courtesy and politeness: a nice gesture.
4 Of good character and reputation; respectable.

You can not go to the restaurant that you despise and still be nice. You can say no nicely and still be courteous.

In my eulogy I’d be honored if someone felt I was of good character and reputation.

The more I ramble about this the more I’m realizing that I have a problem with her definition of nice because to me she is defining fake which is anything but nice in my world. Nice isn’t nearly so nice when it’s fake.

I’m sad that it’s becoming a recurring theme around me that something I’ve always considered good and wholesome is becoming negative.

I’ll continue to be nice because it’s what makes me happy. It’s part of who I am. Rest assured though, when I’m being nice I’m also being sincere.

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Warning! Better weather ahead!!

I wish I could capture on film the sounds of spring as well. Birds in the trees, children running and playing outside, the crack of baseball bats, and sneezes.

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