Spring Has Sprung!!

We've been pretty busy here at Ivy Hill trying to get things done! I planted those daffodils a few weeks ago, not expecting them to bloom this year, but apparently they decided that they wanted to make an appearance! We have plans to put a brick border around the beds around the porch. We also put more flowers around our crepe myrtle tree, and cleaned out around the mailbox and planted flowers there too. The mailman got a surprise when one of those flowers sprouted a little yellow daffodil as well! :-)

This picture of our pear tree was taken a couple of days ago. There are several more blooms on it now! Last year in April we had tornadoes and every single bloom, save 1, was blown off the tree! It was doing really well until the hurricane came and then we had to pull the 1 immature pear so it didn't fly off and go thru a window or anything. We're hoping that this year we have some pears to harvest! It's still a pretty young tree, so I'm pretty surprised that we are getting anything.

I did finally get the strawberry bed cleaned out! This was taken the other day as well, before I had gotten it completely cleaned out. This year, I'm not going to let them go hog wild like I did last year! Sheesh! What a mess that bed was! There are quite a few more flowers now and some of them already have the beginnings of strawberries on them!

Last year DH thought it would be a good idea to put our grapes on the fence because one of our other neighbors had done it that way. I TRIED to get him to just put up some lines for a small vineyard, but, he wouldn't cough up the dough for it. I guess it's just practice for our farm anyways, but now that I think about it... it's going to be difficult to keep the dogs off of the immature grapes! I noticed that this winter they chewed some of the vines that were on the inside of the fence. This same vine now has a few very small leaves. It's quite exciting!

We had gone to Tractor Supply and there were these ADORABLE little grey Easter Eggers! If DH would have had his way, we would have brought some home. I told him that we didn't have the set up for it right now and that if he would just be patient, then we could get a coop and get some chickens. We've decided that we're going to get some for DDs birthday. Since they will be her pets, they will all have names, and we will only use them for eggs. DH does want to get some rabbits for meat. I guess we will have to see how that goes. I'm not real keen on the idea because, while I love the taste of rabbit, they are just SO adorable!

This is DS holding one of our friends Easter Egger chicks. That little chick just attached itself to him and when anybody tried to pick it up it would cheep up a storm and as soon as you put it down, it would snuggle back into his lap and quiet right back down.

Elsewhere, we are watching our new tomatoes grow by the day! Most of them have their first set of true leaves now. Almost all of the other seeds didn't make it. We've got more that we planted. I'm seriously going to invest in the light for next year!! This is ridiculous! We put almost 2 months into those seedlings and they were just so leggy!!

Anyways, until the next time! I hope that everyone is able to get their hands in the dirt soon!

Been a while!

So, it's been a while. Sorry about that.

It turned out to be a pretty bad start for my seedlings. :-(

Since we don't have very good lighting in our house, all the seedlings get really leggy. What we really need is to get a grow light. We're going to be investing in one of those this off season. I've got a plan to make a PVC stand for the light to hang on. It will be about 4 ft long and about 2 ft wide. I think we will put it on top of one of the dogs crates in the laundry room. That way it will be out of the way, but still accessible.

The tomatoes were doing really well! I had 4 of them that were really starting to get big and had true leaves. I transplanted them into larger containers and started setting them outside for some natural light. One day, DS and I were working in the garden and we decided to take a break. I was then distracted by the husband asking about dinner, and saying that he wanted to have potato salad and I completely forgot the plants were outside! I woke up at 3 that morning and went "Oh my gosh!! I forgot the plants outside!" It wasn't good. They were okay, but very weak. Then one of the dogs tails decided that it was going to finish off 3 of my large plants. I've basically had to start my tomatoes over. Two months of growing wasted by leggy plants. *sigh*

The eggplants are doing rather well! I transplanted them, and I've been setting them outside. I thought I was going to lose them for a while because they were looking a bit rough around the edges, but, since I put them into some compost to get them out of the seed starting mix, they have really started to perk up!

The kids and I planted mesclun, butter lettuce, broccoli, and cauliflower in the beds yesterday. We cleaned out the last bed that needed to be done. I worked on the strawberry bed as well. I also found a black widow in the strawberries! Thank goodness I had enough sense to stop when I seen the web and stick the scissors in there instead of my hand! It could have been very bad! DH was at a doctors appointment, and my car was almost out of gas. If I would have gotten bit, it could have been very very VERY bad!

Anyways, I've got to get ready for church! I'm going to put the plants out for some light and hit the shower. It's currently 40, but is supposed to warm up to 65! Hopefully this is the last "cold" night we have so I can really get some things in the garden!

Hopefully, I'll be a bit better about this blog as well! I'm sure once things start popping up, we will get some pictures going and I'll have more ambition to post! :-)