So we finished the garden today!  We put the garden up and planted allot of three of the beds.  I put my beautiful garden witch up, and hopefully she will protect my yeild from all the little critters in the neighborhood.  I have put in everything but the tomatos and peppers, it's still a bit cold for that right now.  Hopefully everything comes up as planned.  Here are a few pics of the finished thing, well except fot the missing sign.  (polyeurethane isn't dry yet!)

 

 

 

I can't believe it's spring already!  I decided this year to do square foot gardening.  We mostly reused materials.  The composite decking we used to make the boxes was taken from the deck at my mothers house.  She hated the way the deck looked so we repurposed a few boards, and now we are both happier.  We screwed together the boxes with the screws that held the decking to the posts.  We laid saved upnewspaper down as a weed barrier and bought a soilless mix at hewitts and added extra compost to it to fill the boxes.  We divided the boxes into one foot sections using slats from the vinyl blinds that were in the dining room when we bought our house.  We've topped it all off with cedar mulch in the path.  Hopefully it wont be too soon before the fence goes up, we've already had an animal digging in the beds, but luckily nothing was planted yet.  I plan on putting up a scarecrow at the back center once the fence goes up, but we'll see.  I'm tempted to work on the fence right now despite the rain! 

I have also been very busy working and horseback riding so far this season.  With all of this I hardly find time to sleep!  I guess what I shopuld probably be doing right now is cleaning the house instead of looking out the window at the rain and bloging, but it's been a long time since I have been on here so I deserve it right?  LOL.  I put updates on the garfen as I go along.  Hopefully the rain stops soon! 

 

 

 

 

So it has been quite some timed since my last blog post, or since I have been here.  Since I have been here last I have closed up the garden for the winter, crocheted Yule gifts and now halfway through the jam and dilly beans and knee deep in seed catalogues.  I have so much planning to do for the spring.  I have started planing the spring plantings.  I think this year I am going to grow more of what is hard to find in the area and get everything else at the local farms.  I am definately growing my own pickling cukes this year.  This past year I had a failed attempt at pickling and I think it is because the cukes at the farm stand were older than I was told.  We'll see when I grow my own this year.  Inot planting green beans this year, because I have found out about a farm where I can get them for $5 a half bushel, so why bother growing my own?  I have a frd I am going to can large batches with this year so we can both be sweaty and miserable at the same time.  lol.  We still haven't finished the dining room.  All I hope for is that the room is done by planting time.  OK, thats all for now.  Blessed Be.

 

So, vacation was awesome.  We went camping up in the adirondaks and made our way to Burlington to go to the Sheep and wool festival in Essex Junction.  We had allot of fun.  We hot alpaca wool for scarves and some pretty hand dyed wool for a poncho.  It was allot hotter than we were expecting, so we got to go swimming, in our clothes though because we didn't bring swim suits.  The beach in burlington is amazing.  Nothing was as beautiful as watchin the sun set on lake champlain.  We had aton of fun and came home to a garden full of tomatoes and zuchini.  Going back to work after such a wonderful vacation was hard to adjust to, but now we're fully back into the grind.  We picked 10 lbs of wild grapes this weekend and the juice is in the fridge.  Tommorrow it will be jelly.  I've been keeping my eye on the crab apple tree at work and they are starting to grow.  Oh the plons I have for those.lol.  I need to make time to cook up some sauce or the tomatoes will rot on me.  Just too much to do and not enough time to do it.  Working 60 hrs. a week is a hassle this time of year.  Planning on having a simple dinner this year for Mabon.  I'm making herb encrusted beef stew and cornbread.  I wanted to go out to the woods for an early dinner picnic but we'll see.  Anyway allot going on in my neck of the woods, as soon as I can get some help from my man I'll have pictures posted from the trip, and of the patio :)

It's funny, I sometimes forget how busy summer time can be, and between working 60 hours a week and the garden and the canning I have been doing I have bearly had time to enjoy the weather.  Has anyone else felt that way?  And yet as fall approaches I look foward to getting the garden ready for next year, apple picking and more canning.  But with fall comes the first full week long vacation I have taken in a long time and I cant wait.    There is still so much to do out in the yard and allot of housework to do before september.  I feel so stretched for time it's not funny.  I went to the farmers market last saturday and bought beans planning on making dilly beans and I haven't had the time yet.  Oh well, Does anyone really have enough time for all the things they want to accomplish?