We have lots of babies!

Over the last few weeks we have been doing some "yard work." I say that with quotes because we live in a townhouse and don't really a yard to speak of. We do have yard outside our door, but it is yard that is "cared" for by the association. I saw that with quotes because they don't really take care of it. The last few years the association has been struggling financially, so they prioritize the projects they spend money on. Apparently maintaining the lawn in anyway more than mowing is too expensive.

So we came to the rescue! There were several large patches of lawn that were brown and dead. I blame the dog, ice melt and lack of care. I took a jaunt over to our friendly neighborhood Mendards and talked to the nice man in the grass seed isle (yes, a whole isle with nothing but grass seed). I told him what I was looking for, the sun/shade conditions, the fact we have a dog, and I showed him using arm spans the size of area we needed to cover. The guy was very helpful and didn't try to sell me the $50 bag of grass seed. We agreed on the $7 bag of "turf builder" type seed where the mulch and moisture helper come right along with it.

We raked the areas and then used the metal rake to break up the soil a bit. Then we laid down the seed mix. It felt a bit like laying cotton down on the grass. I took up the task of watering it every day - mostly. I have been watching it everyday. I was so excited when last weekend we started to see little baby grass blades appearing. Today we are starting to see the results of our labor with large patches of grass growing in. Yup, I am beeming like a proud parent over my grass seed growing in. :)

This year I am also determined to have tomatoes. In years past I have had a plant and harvest maybe 3-4 tomatoes. This year, I have 3 large pots with plants and again have been watching and watering daily. So far so good, my plants about doubled in the last two weeks! I am hopeful with the plants doing well the fruit will also do well and I will have tomatoes this summer.

Before-its hard to see, but the planter box is looking pretty shabby and starting to sag apart.

I am also taking great pride in my new planter box. My brother-in-law surprised me by building a new planter box for me for my birthday. We have talked a few times about what it would take to get a new one...and surprise, it happened. YAY. So Michael and Nick worked for an evening to build it. (While I watched my nieces and watched the American Idol Finale!)

The guys hard at work on the planter box. What an improvement. And they made it work with out disturbing the plants. I have some of my Grandma Blanche's Fern Peonies that I would really like to keep alive.

Memorial Day weekend my parents came over and helped to fill the rest of the box and plant some more plants.Here is the finished product with the tomato plants. It's hard to see how fantastic everything looks, but really it does look great!

Adding to the list of things we are growing, Nick has Rhubarb that apparently LOVES where it is planted. Here is the pre-harvest picture of the "plant" that has taken over the rock patch.