Last year Papa built two wonderful raised beds and he did it for me again this year!  These are freshly painted with linseed oil and this weekend I plan to place them out in the yard, LEVEL them, move the soil from the old boxes, LEVEL those and then add new soil a bit laterin the week. 

It was such a lovely day that I brought lunch outside to eat in front of Papa's workshop!

Papa had a VERY rapt audience.

This is the time of year where I really, really, really want to dig in the dirt.  I know that Old Man Winter can rear his frosty head for another month, however, and so I MUST refrain from sticking seeds and seedlings into every bit of earth I can scratch about.  I do indulge my whim in ONE of my raised beds, just so i have something to moon over for the long weeks between the end of February when I am really ready for spring and early April when I can finally plant stuff.  I put in some peas and some spinach   a while back and slowly they are peeking out of the ground!

I do try not to get too attached, however, because I know a poorly timed deep freeze could sniff the life right out of my poor seedlets!

I also cleaned up two of my "Square Foot Garden" boxes AND I managed to keep my seeds out of that lovely soil.  I was a Herculean effort, however.  I've gone outside twice just to pat the earth and take a nice wiff.  Of course I didn't think to snap a photo until dusk, but you get the idea.

Soon, very soon....

Well, the tomatoes have sprouted quite nicely.  I placed quite a few seeds in each cell because they were a couple of years old, but that doesn't seem to matter!

The only thing is, now I"m going to have to thin them and that just feels like MURDER!

I decided to join in the fun that they're having over at Coldantler Farm.

I bought these yesterday....

(That's Harry the Pea Eater's paw)

Turned over some really nice soil....

And now the peas are all in....along with some spinach.  I had a partial pack from the fall and figured, what the hey!

The fence is to protect my plants from our three dogs who LOVE to help in all aspects of gardening.  They are quite accomplished diggers and mole/vole killers.  Harry, Josh's dog (see sidebar with Josh's picture) used to sit in the middle of the pea patch and EAT the pods.  I could not believe he could or would do that but I caught him red-pawed several times and so we had to put the fence up. 

Today I decided to cook the last of the carrots from the garden.  I went outside and with a little tugging and pulling, these popped out!

I'm not sure what caused this, perhaps varying water levels, but they were still delicious:

Did you know that you can EAT chickweed?!?!

http://www.herbalcuisine.com/Chickweed.html

I never knew this.  I guess I've been chucking out 20 pounds of this stuff from the back yard each spring and summer.  I'm not sure if I want to try it or not.  Picking food without planting and tending just seems weird somehow.

But it sure would be cool to have salad WITHOUT sweat from my brow!

We went hiking along the Chattahoochee River a couple of weeks ago and came upon a huge patch of blackberry bushes just loaded with berries.  I happened to have a gallon sized ziplock bag and so we spent a few minutes grabbing a bunch.  Here is the result:

I used my Cuisinart Bread Machine to make this jam and it was soooo easy: just wash the berries throw them in with a couple of cups of sugar and a packet of pectin and some lemon juice.  An hour and a half later the machine beeps at me and I poured the jam into a hot jar and voila!  Now I just need to eat it in four weeks.  I don't think that will be a problem.

Oh, the cucumbers are actually from my garden--I think they wanted to sneak into this picture.

The weather was so beautiful today that I spent a good chunk of time outside.  Today's big job was to fill the two wooden boxes Papa built for me with compost.  Over the past few days I have also planted six azaleas, several shrubs and Rebecca planted some flowers. 

Here are my "Square Foot Gardening" boxes.  I am really excited about trying this method by the book this year!

Here is one of the azaleas:

These are the flowers that Rebecca planted:

This is a plant that we put in a few years ago, but is blooming beautifully right now and I can't help but show it off.  The leaves come in kind of a light pinkish/green color, change to a light green, change again to a bright red and finally end up a dark green.  There are also beautiful white, dangling bunches of flowers.  It's a really cool plant.  I just wish I could remember what it is called!

A few weeks ago I raked the mulch from one of our raised beds and found a rather large patch of parsley that I had planted last year.  I thought it had pretty much died off in a big freeze last fall.  It is thrving and growing bigger it seems like every day.  Is parsley supposed to do that? 

I also watched a really cool gardening show on PBS called Gardening in Georgia.  It's nice to get informatoin that's especially for your region in a TV show. 

What a warm, beautiful afternoon we had today!  The weather has been making me itch to get back into the garden and so I"ve been working on some projects.

This yogurt cup became markers for:

My future seedlings!  Which are now resting quite happily on the freezer in the basement.

Just think, in a few short days I will have teeny, tiny seedlings that will eventually become dinner on my plate!

And this is what started it all--tulips just beginning to poke from the ground!

Actually, my second project is even more exciting.  I have been wanting to build boxes to facilitate the Square Foot Gardening method more successfully and this is what was accomplished today:

Now, most of the work was done by Papa who dearly loves a new project.  I did apply the linseed oil, however.  And of course, if you're going to go to all that trouble to build one...

Now the planning begins!

I spent more time working in the yard today.  I'm trying to remove all the weeds that parade as a lawn in our yard and replace them with some nice fescue.  Without using chemicals.  It's very hard work.

~

Here is what our "lawn" looks like prior to weeding:   

~

~

Here's what it looks like after weeding: 

~

~

Since I can't weed the whole yard at once I've been doing it in spots.   Hence the wheat straw spots where I have dumped a load of fescue seed in hopes that some of it will sprout and take root and keep the weeds from returning. 

~

~

When this batch of "spots" needs to be mowed I will put down more seed in the newly weeded areas and hopefully my yard will turn green in concentric rings.  That's the theory anyway. 

~

~

One day when I'm old and grey I want to have a nice GREEN lawn.  I might have to wait until all the dogs are gone before I achieve this.  Harry has worn a number of paths from one side of the house to the other.  He doesn't want to miss an opportunity to bark at the UPS man, the garbage man, the mailman, joggers, walkers, people walking dogs, women walking by with strollers, kids on bikes, kids playing in the street, and any vehicle with a diesel engine. 

~

As I was taking these pictures, I noticed that we had a very pretty visitor at Rebecca's Butterfly Bush.  Unfortunately, she is sick and flatly refused to come rushing outside in the 247 degree weather to look at the wonderful visitor.  Silly girl.  Fortunately her mother happened to have a camera handy.

~