There are a couple of really pretty lilac bushes and a snowball tree here that were so beautiful last year. But we had a cold snap a few weeks ago and most of the bushes have just looked like this.
Frozen and dead. I figured we wouldn't have any of those pretty flowers this year. Then yesterday I looked around long enough to see there were some survivors that have come shining though!
Maybe not all hope for growing is lost?
We talked over the weekend about when to get the seeds in the ground for our garden, and then we woke up on Sunday morning after a huge windstorm to this...
Trent really wants to plant beans this year that we can bottle. Mostly just green beans but he also wants to do pickled beans. He has been helping his friend out on a construction job on his days off and brought all of these boards home to make a bean house for all of the beans he wants to grow. I hated it at first... a 7 foot high bean house was not what I was envisioning. But after spending a good week staining the wood to have that nice dark/weathered look and tying all of the strings up for the beans to grow on... it really wasn't so bad.
But now the bean house is strewn all over the back yard and totally ruined. That was were the motivation flew out the window for me. I'm leaving it up to Trent to figure out what he wants to do with his beans. I'm not sure a 7 foot tall bean structure is going to hold up in the part of the state where the winds howl like I've never seen before. Granted... he didn't stake it down as well as it should have been, but I don't want to lose all of the beans if we get another good wind storm (which I'm sure we will).
I am glad that we planted one bed early on and it is starting to grow well! So we will have something! And if I can get my wits about me to plant the rest of it... I'm sure that I wont regret it and I will be glad that we planted another good garden.
Maybe the planting can just wait a few more weeks? I don't know. I think part of my lack of motivation is preparing for the baby. Will I really have the time or desire to harvest the food that we plant in the fall when I have a snuggly newborn that I want to be with instead? Or will I welcome the break and something to do other than change diapers and nurse again? Not sure...
In the meantime, I'm spending good time outside when I can. Instead of working on these bare garden beds I've decided to pull out all of the dandilions out of the grass. It's a large yard... with lots of dandilions this year. I realize it's a battle I probably can't win, but it's pretty rewarding to get these little buggers out of the grass.
