Adventures in gardening!

Whew, I’m able to blog again. Been a little busy… ok, a lot busy. I’ve been working on the backyard. We are now the proud owners of 600 sq ft of grass and the garden is growing like crazy! Family and friends are shocked that I’ve actually been able to grow something from a seed! I’m shocked too! Kaydee is over the moon with excitement and absolutely can not wait until we can harvest some of the hard work we have put into that garden. I’m guilty of plucking a few carrot stems… ok, so I’m not the most patient person in the world! I just wanted to see if there was a wee little carrot on the end of the stem….nope; not yet. I’ve sampled a bit of the green onions (chives) and WOW are they ever flavorful! I’m so proud of our little garden! : ) Can you tell?? Everything that we planted has taken off. I’m actually debating on planting more. I have 1 & ½ empty rows left… maybe some cabbage? Jalepenos? Kevan added some chicken wire to the fence to keep Roscoe out of the garden. That cat has a fixation with the row of peas… nothing else, just the peas. He has laid across them and rearranged them so much to make a nice comfy bed for himself that I’ve had to stake/support them. Well, we fixed his wagon…. Look at him hanging out with the herbs….bwahahaha! No more garden for Roscoe… ACCESS DENIED! Oddly enough, he won’t jump the fence. I guess that’s lucky for me…. Or him, depending on how you look at it. ; )
Ok, now for the grass story. I do have some advice for anyone contemplating sod…. HAVE IT DELIVERED! And if at all possible, installed too!!! What an ordeal! On Thursday I went into Home Depot and ordered 1 pallet of grass… exactly 60 rolls/600 sq ft. A month ago I attempted to seed. I tilled the soil, added a liberal amount of seed, added enough seed starter for my area and watered. And watered. And watered. In between watering I waited. Waited & watched…. For the most remote sign of life….NOTHING. Oh wait, somewhere during week 3 we started seeing some growth. It wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for; in fact what we saw emerging was a solid blanket of little tiny weeds that were very close knit. I could tell that they were weeds by the little tiny leaves that began to sprout from the tips. For a brief moment I rationalized to myself that perhaps this was just how new grass started. After all, the spinach in our garden started out resembling grass so maybe I was wrong and there might still be hope. Please?? Not so much. *sigh* As it continued to get hotter, the last thing on my mind was starting all over again with the seed thing. The heat here could make anybody crazy and I was pretty frustrated to start. So, fast forward to Thursday… The wonderful people at home depot took pity on me and after reimbursing me for the seed they offered a fantastic deal on the sod. The catch? I had to pick it up. I arrived at Home Depot at 6am Friday morning to pick up the little pallet of sod and was informed that I was going to need a bigger truck. Hello? This is a Chevy! Doesn’t that count for something? I was disappointed at the thought of having to go back home sod-less and to pick up the trailer. So what’s a girl to do? I called my husband of course! He was finishing up at work and stated that the rear should hold at least 4000 pounds so to let them load it into the truck and not to worry. The Home Depot guys looked pretty confused but obliged….somehow I just know they had a nice long laugh about this at the end of the day. Anywhooo.. Since the pallet was 2” wider than the truck bed we had to load each roll by hand. 60 rolls at anywhere between 60 & 100 pounds per piece is no easy task. There is absolutely no way to do this gracefully. The first few rolls were easy to transfer by using just my hands. As we worked our way through the pallet, it became messier, smellier, and loaded with little bug critters. By now, I was having some pretty warped thoughts about Kevan… it was his idea that I press on and load them. Where the heck was he? He should be done with work by now! This stuff was absolutely FOUL! If you have any aversions to bugs WHAT-SO-EVER I’ve found the cure for you. You unload about 6000 pounds of sod as quickly as you can, in nearly 100 degree weather and in time it won’t matter what crawls out of it. If you’re still upright after the smell from the middle of a pallet, you’re doing good! By the time we were about 1/3 of the way into the pallet the rolls of sod became extremely heavy. Moving with my hands (and away from my body) was not an option. I reluctantly bear hugged every roll that I transferred from that pallet. To say that I looked like a swamp creature by 9am would be an understatement. Well, it all fit in the back of the truck…. One problem though…. My wheel wells were nicely resting on top of the rear tires. NICE! Home Depot guys had said all but “I told you so” but I know they wanted to say it! Enter stage left: very nice, good samaritan…. And his name was Isidro. Isidro was very concerned about the weight on the rear axle…. YA THINK? At this point I was quickly approaching the “I don’t care” attitude. I was head to toe in the most disgusting mud I’ve ever smelled in my life, way overheated, and couldn’t quite remember if I had taken my Premarin that morning…. None of which were a good combination. Well Isidro, if you’re out there in blogland; I’m SO grateful! : ) This kind man not only helped me unload half of my sod into his truck but followed me home to help me unload it AGAIN. He accepted payment for his help after some coaxing… seriously, I would have been up a creek without his generosity.
Other than gardening adventures, I’ve been working on a design team entry for a June guest designer contest over at Mosh Posh. Actually, I finished up my entry a few days ago and have finally taken pics to upload to their site. I’ll see if I can post them here too. So, that’s my recent happenings in a very large nutshell. What have you been up to? Until next time… CIAO! ; )