First Day In The Garden!

Not so clean and pretty anymore! :) But that's okay, my new gloves got nearly FIVE hours of use this morning!

I was up at 6:30 this morning and did my new usual routine of driving the dogs to the other side of the river for their 45-minute walk.

I don't know what Marlene sees, but this is the second morning where she just parks herself by the lake and stares. Yesterday the other two looked on but today they lost interest. I had to pull her away!

It was a cold morning though, close to zero and the grass was crunchy to walk on. But the sun is really hot and I was able to spend lots of time in the yard. There are two little plots on either side of the stairs that I cleared of most weeds and junk. The plot on the left has some perennial lilies that I will transplant once I can dig a little deeper into the frozen ground. I already have a little fence around one side, and I pulled out some more lattice from our haul last year to prepare making a fence for the second plot - but I want to wait until the flowers are transplanted before I set it all up.

This photo shows a more realistic view of the size of those two plots. They aren't very big, but they'll do for my container veggies! Plus, this is where I will plan my cold frames for the winter gardening. If I need to, I'll put more containers just behind the wheel barrow. But I'm trying to avoid doing that as well because of so many roots and bushes there, I tried last summer but found it impossible to clean up.

There is a terrible root system here and the landlord could care less about it. We've tripped over the roots too many times so this year, I took out the ax and cut a bunch of them out. There are still a few big ones, and I don't want to hurt the trees attached, so I decided to dig up as much as I could and put some patio stones down as a walkway.  At least this way we won't trip over what's left of the tree roots. That was quite a task.

The last thing I did was clean up the bird feeder and surrounding areas. Oh my gosh the amount of sunflower seed shells!!! There is an old flower box that holds the feeder. It was mostly weeds and grass with some wildflowers. I decided this is where I'm going to scatter my butterfly and bird flower mix next month. I read that once you take all the weeds out, layer your bed with top soil, newspaper and cover it and there should be no more weeds when you're ready to plant. Testing this theory!

My strawberry plant from last summer was under the snow and I dug it out and added some potting soil to the top and watered it. It's now hanging in the sun, I hope I get some strawberries coming back this year! Being a "newb", last year I left the strawberry plant out when it was blossoming and the darn chipmunks and squirrels ate all but 3 of my berries...I'll be more careful this year if I get more fruit!

Hmmm...I wrote that I ordered more seeds yesterday...well, I guess I'd forgotten I'd ALREADY ordered more a few weeks ago! Does that mean something??? ;)

I did admit to my obsession, so let's leave it at that. I actually forgot about these! I got my cukes and radishes. And the cherries were on a whim, I have to look up how to grow them.

I planned ahead for my winter cold frame garden. These will all be planted in late summer.

When we went to pick up the mail, we dropped by my neighbour's place. She had to put her 16 year old Yorkie to sleep last month, poor thing had liver problems. But yesterday she got herself a little puppy she named Patch. He was SO ADORABLE and smelled like a little baby! :) I wanted to walk away with him!!! Speaking of dogs...look at these two photos:

I live in a little village in the Laurentians. Just walking to the mailbox, Alex and I saw TWO LOOSE DOGS!!!  There are two parks and a loose dog per park. By the way, the second photo isn't closed in, there is one side (to the left of the photo) that is completely open and leads to the main road of the village. Two loose dogs...and this is above and beyond FOUR of our direct neighbours who leave their dogs untied. I'm so glad we got photo evidence. Alex sent an email to the "canine inspector" (who brushed us off the last few weeks); the person at town hall who is in charge of the inspector's contract; and the mayor. There is no denying that the residents need a reminder to keep their dogs tied. And this is in the village where I now drive through, go figure. I hate people and society sometimes, why can't they just follow the rules? What is the point? I can't wait to move away from people into the woods. I'll be happy to put up a big fence and let our dogs have the run of OUR property while no other dogs can roam inside their sanctuary...Sorry for the rant...it's really a problem here with the residents and it bugs me so much.

So this is my window garden. All of my seedlings and herbs are ready to go and getting sun from the only sunny window in the house! I love this view from my desk.

It's just 5pm...I'm pooped. First day in the garden and my hands are so sore I feel like weeping. Nothing helps...If any blogger pal out there can suggest a home remedy...PLEASE. Kristina maybe? You always have so many ideas and I'd love to hear some of them! I've tried Advil, Tylenol, muscle creams...my knuckles and joints ache when I use my hands a lot and I easily drop stuff because I lose my grip. Doctors gave me generic excuses...anyway, I poured a white wine spritzer, lit a candle and wrote my blog post! Now I'm headed up to bed with Alex to watch an Alfred Hitchcock movie, "Rope" with Jimmy Stewart, then we'll have a nice relaxing dinner together, chicken is on the menu!