The garden has been dug!

Today we finally dug the garden!

What a job that was! It was comical to say the least! We rented a sod cutter so my husband cut the area using a tarp as a template. It came out much bigger than we realized but hey, more room to spread out!!

Then it was time to get the kids involved! We picked rocks! It was so fun to watch their different styles. Daddy told them they could earn 1 penny for each rock. This got Sunshine very excited! She counted every rock she picked... 1042 so she says! The twins went about this activity differently. #1 picked up the rocks, looked at them for their beauty, sorted them by size, and gave them as gifts. #2 decided she wasn't really into picking rocks so she helped with shoveling compost. I love watching how they do things!!!!

Then the girls went in for lunch. Daddy used the rototiller and then we picked more rocks!!! Wow, were there a LOT of rocks!!!!!

We tested the soil and it was very acidic so we shooed off the kids and added a bunch of lime and our home grown compost (Watch for a blog about this stuff!) and rototilled again!!!

It looks soooo good now!!!!! It was a ton more work than I realized (especially since we also tackled the drainage trench around the house at the same time) but I'm so glad we did it....I can't wait to plant!!!

spring in Connecticut

We had a wonderful time in Connecticut!

The best part is that it was WARM!

They are about 3 weeks ahead of us and it was great to get a peek into what is to come!

The grass was green, the kids got to pick dandilions, and the Azela's were in bloom!

As soon as I can get the photo uploader to work I'll post more pictures!

Daffodils almost blooming and a slow going veggie experience

I have been waiting months for my daffodils to bloom and now they are so very close to blooming and we are going to be in Connecticut for the weekend! Oh well, I'm looking forward to the warm weekend they have in the forcast and I've been told there are quite a flowers in bloom!

I went to Lowes the other day as I had promised but they didn't have the great deal on natives. Oh well! I did stop myself from buying seeds... I may be anxious but I really want to go through Johnnys selected seeds... I hear it's worth the effort. We came home with a sad looking 6 pack of pansies that were on sale for a whopping 75 cents. The girls loved them and wanted to give them a good home. What could I say??

As far as the veggie garden, it's a slower process than I expected.

I'm on line to buy my seeds, Garden is planned and we are renting the equipment to make it happen. We inherited a compost pile and a beautiful pile of what looks like potting soil so I'm hoping to use that. I still feel like I've gotten too excited to soon, I want it to go faster!! Of course if my darling hubby didn't work so much and didn't want a hand in the activities it would go faster!!!! LOL!!!!

Many good intentions....

I've been eager to write again however, between everyone having a different illness and doing all the little things we can do now that it's warmer we've put gardening on the back burner for about a week.

Tomorrow the twins and I go shopping! We are buying some seeds to start (I know it's kinda late for some things but hopefully not too late) and I'm hoping to go to Lowes for the native plants I read about in someone's blog last week... I'm probably too late but it's worth a shot!

We are hoping to get the garden dug during vacation week. I think we have a good spot picked. It gets a lot of sun. Is it bad for it to get too much though??

The girls are eager to get to work on their planter boxes. Vacation week may be a good time for us to do that but, it's probably too early. I'm wondering, if I cover them during the night if they will be OK or should I bring them in?? I've also been wondering if I should cover the preinnals that have been coming up? I'd think if they came up they'd be hardy enough but I also worry since there are some yellow patches on my daffodil leaves.

Wish me luck at Lowe's tomorrow!! Here's to a more productive week!

The first growth of spring

Ok, I am learning a little more about blogging.... I can now download pictures! Here are some of the small beginnings in my gardens. The snow has now fully melted from one side of the garden now and things are sprouting all the time! This being our first spring we are so excited to see what will come up! I'm already finding that I don't know what some stuff is!


Does anyone know what kind of flower this is?



My mystery tree is getting buds!!!

LOL! On one side of the walkway it's winter, and the other spring has sprung!

My daffodils in March... They are almost ready to bloom now!

Spring is in the air!

I want to thank a friend of mine for turning me onto blogging. This is my first time trying my hand at writing but I think it will be fun!

I should start by telling a bit about myself. I'm a full time domestic engineer with three lovely girls. "Sunshine" is 8 and "the twins" will be 5 in June!

This is our first year living in Maine (again, my husband and I grew up here). We moved here in July after living in a condo in the suburbs of Boston for 7 years. Although it's not that far away, this has been a big change for us! I realized this morning I should have blogged about my winter... what a change of perception that was! It went from "Oh I love the snow" "How Pretty" too... "OMG, not another storm to shovel!!!" "But Boston's getting rain! They don't even have snow!" I think this was an especially rough winter so I'm not the only one around who is excited spring is in the air!

We are looking forward to seeing what will be growing in our gardens through the year! We are also planning a veggie garden and we have planter boxes for each of the kids to plant by themselves (we are going encourage herbs!). This large undertaking prompted me to blogging... I have a feeling it will be nothing less than humorous!!!

This week has been the first week that we have been able to work in our (just sprouting) flower gardens. The twins have loved helping me clean out the debris from last year. I let them cut the dead leaves from the lillies using the garden sissors. They thought that was cool!

We have some little white flowers already blooming (found them in a snowbank last week) and daffodils that are about ready to bloom in a really sunny spot. The girls decided they were thirsty so they collected the runoff from the roof (yup, still snow up there!) in measuring cups (great science lesson!) to water them.

So, this ends my first blog. I will try to post pictures of our adventures. Please feel free to comment as I know I will need as much help as possible!!!

Thanks!