Weekend In The Garden!!

As promised, here I am, back with a report of the outdoor activities that my Beloved Geek Boy and I undertook over the May Day/Labour Day long weekend ...


It may have been a long weekend, but life at the Meares' Madhouse was far from relaxing over the weekend as we got stuck into some much-delayed work in the backyard. We started off with two main objectives for the weekend.
1. Replace the collapsed clothesline {you're all so mean for laughing at my misfortune!! :0)}
2. Significantly trim our gum tree to keep a fussy neighbour happy

Seems simple enough, right? So, we started our gardening assignment with a trip to Bunnings hardware warehouse ... UH OH!!! And THAT'S where things began to get more COMPLICATED! You know what it's like when you go to the hardware shop for 2 things and end up buying 20, right?! Or is that just us?!?!?! :0) I think they pump something through the ventilation system ... some kind of 'happy gardener gas' ... that sends you into a gardening and DIY frenzy! So by the time we left Bunnings, we had a new clothesline ... along with a WHOLE LOT of other bits and bobs and a somewhat extended job list. Oops! Oh well, it had been a while since our yard had some attention so it would be beneficial, but boy oh boy, the budget sure is blown! :0)

So, added to the "To Do" list was ...
3. Build & plant vege garden

Now, this is the 'potential vege patch' that has been in the back yard for over 12 months ...

Pretty sad, hey! And this shot was taken before the lawn was mown, too, I might add. So GB dragged out the mower and whipper-snipper, then replaced all of these old railway sleepers where they were supposed to be and bolted them together for stability - these suckers aren't going ANYWHERE anytime soon! :0)

To help us further with our vege patch mission, we had a load of wonderful organic garden loam delivered ... right smack bang in the middle of the driveway! SIGH! Can you tell it was a MAN driving that dump truck!!! It was at this point that we discovered Lily (the Australian Terrier/Fox Terrier cross) had an interest in gardening, too ... sort of. This was HER contribution ...

In fact, this is just one of MANY holes she dug in the big pile of dirt ... I think it was her idea of heaven to find so much dirt to play and dig in, right on her back doorstep! :0) That was about as much as we managed to achieve on Saturday, so plans were carried over.

Sunday dawned bright and sunny - a perfect autumn day. GB (who thankfully is a very handy handy-man!) decided to leave the installation of the new clothesline til last to give a bit more manoeuvring room in the yard for the delivery of 'stuff' and for carting the trimmed tree branches away. So the first job was tackling the tree-trimming and for that, we called in a favour from a friend ... my dancing buddy (and fellow turning-40 buddy!) Lynda's beloved, who works with trees and he and GB got stuck in.

Here's Justin in his natural habitat ... up a tree! :0) Can you see him? It's a little bit like playing "Where's Wally?" He and GB had already dealt with one big branch before I took this ... my poor tree!! :0( To distract me from the denuding of my poor tree, Lynda and her kids decided to pitch in and help me bucket the load of soil from the driveway into the frame for the vege patch. Yes ... you read correctly, I said "BUCKET" the soil to move it. Why? Well, the wheelbarrow decided to go out in sympathy with the clothesline! SIGH!!!! However, bucketing worked out to be a fairly effective, if strenuous alternative - Lynda and I do NOT need to visit a gym for quite a while! :0)

Here's Lynda's kids, Amy and Jayk attacking the pile of soil ... and Lynda in the background supervising! :0) Actually, she was just avoiding being in the photo, but that didn't work very well! Tee! Hee! Hee! And of course, when you give a boy a bucket and some dirt, he's bound to find numerous ways to amuse himself ... like building dirt-castles ...

Jayk showing off his best dirt-castle construction. So after a few hours of this soil-moving operation, we were all pretty had-it and called it quits for a lunch break ... even Wombat seemed ready for a rest ...

Yeah ... it's a tough life being a dog, all right! :0) And what did we have to show for our work?

A garden just waiting for some veges to be planted. So, these little cuties that followed me home from Bunnings ...

... were planted out, watered in with some organic fertiliser, mulched, given some trellises for support and ...

HEY PRESTO!

A rather attractive vegetable garden! Well ... not quite 'hey presto', actually, lots of hard work that my back, arms and legs are telling me about today! :0) I've planted some snowpeas, French beans, cauliflower and baby carots to start with.

While the garden bed is a great height off the ground for comfortable pottering and weed-pulling, it was going to be a big of a stretch to reach the centre (me being fairly short all over!!), so I solved the problem by popping in a potted lemon tree. And in keeping with pottage gardening principals (which I admire but rarely remember to read up on to follow!!) I did a bit of companion planting by adding a border of marigolds around the edge of my vege patch. Not only will these attract good bugs and repel bad bugs from my veges (I hope!) ... they'll look cheerful and pretty when they flower! :0) So, that was our gardening weekend at the Meares' Madhouse. Oh ... what's that? ... What about the clothesline, you ask??? OK ... here we go, the much-anticipated unveiling of the new, improved clothesline ...

Ta da!! We got one of the you-beaut removable and fold-away lines, so if something's happening in the backyard and we want some more space, we just pop the clothesline out, fold all of the arms in and store it in the shed til washing day rolls around again - neat, huh! :0) And Wombat was on hand to be the 'beautiful assistant' ... sort of! :0) GB said he was a poser! Tee! Hee! Hee!

And after such an exhausting weekend, added to this afternoon's cool, drizzly, overcast weather, I think I've earned a bit of time to curl up with a cup of tea and a book ... don't you?!?! :0) Hope your weekend was enjoyable and productive, too. Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!
CHEERS!
KRIS