Breckenridge Mining HikeThis is a special remote post from Breckenridge Colorado where Mike and I (with no children) are enjoying a relax, rejuvenate, and reconnect vacation. It has been so mellow and relaxing. We are loving it!
But I wanted to talk a bit more about the gardening. Mike suggested that I bring it out further and take out some of the existing lawn. I said sure, but I'm not sure why I did it. It's a lot of hard work to pull out grass, so that was quite a project and then I had all this space that I needed to fill. I about doubled the size of my vegetable garden. So I decided to intermix flowers and vegetables (mostly because I didn't know what the heck I was going to fill all that space with). Then I just kept planting more and more things. In the end I have 23 tomato plants (half of which are roma), 12 bell pepper plants, a few eggplants, some tomatillos, anaheim peppers, popcorn, beans, three types of squash, peas, beets, rhubarb, onions, and there are probably more that I am forgetting right now. Then I have marigolds and petunias, a good 100 gladiolas, a poppy, a wildflower mix, and a sunflower house. I also planted the beans, corn and one of the squash as a three sisters garden. I decided to make my garden more organic and interesting looking. Instead of a square, I made more of a B shape with the border flowing and curving. I took a gardening landscape class and talked to a professional about my design ideas. She rejected them. She told me I shouldn't do it...but I did it anyways. I have to admit that it was a little disappointing to me. I had spent all this time working on the garden and when I had pretty much finished planting I turned around a looked at all my hard work and it so far amounts to some small seedlings and clear dirt where the seeds have been planted. Not the big beautiful garden that I had in mind yet, but I will have patience and wait for it to grow and then I will be happy with the fruits of my labors.
Then there is the other garden. My parents have a piece of land that my mom decided would make a great garden. So she and my dad cleared away 1/4 acre and she invited all of us to garden together as a family on the land. I like to call it the family plot (my mom keeps asking who is getting buried there, hehe). I have been out there a few times to work on it with my mom. We have done snow peas (4-75 foot rows) and corn (3, soon to be 6-75 food rows). We also have 3 varieties of watermelon, 3 varieties of pumpkin and 3 varieties of winter squash. So I am here to tell you that this is gardening in mega proportions. I may have possibly bitten off more than I can chew with this gardening business this year. When the late summer and fall comes and I am buried in produce you can all come back and say I told you so. But I am very happy with it. I have found great joy in my garden. It is nice to go out there and tend to the garden. I kind of get to step away from the craziness that is life and being a mother and find peace in my garden. I am very proud of it and of the hard work I have put into it. Also my new favorite author for gardening books is Sharon Lovejoy. They are fast reads bursting with great ideas so you should check them out.
My other big yard goals this year have been about furniture. Well first of all to get the deck finished. By fall last year, the floor was done, but Mike still had the stairs and the railing to go. As of Memorial day weekend the stairs are done. Mike's 2 brothers Fuzz and Steve came over and helped him get it done in one day. Their help was invaluable. Steve's family came over as well and the cousins played all day while Jen and I chatted. Then we topped the whole day off with a birthday party for Taylor. I also that same weekend became the owner of a porch swing. I am so excited about this. I am already loving just sitting and swinging. Plus I finally have a place to sit on the front porch. The next thing on my list is a patio set so that we can eat meals outside on our new deck. I have also been working on getting non-plant accents for the garden. My favorite place to shop for them has been DI. It's been a slow project, but that's okay because I have been getting things as I have been finding them and getting them really cheap. So yeah, things are moving forward well and on schedule and I am happy for what our yard is becoming.
