new house

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Woo-hoo! 84 degrees here in western New York last week! Warm enough for me to finally start gardening at the new house I moved into this past Thanksgiving and scouting the property for all the new plants coming up!

Bringing the "Plant Babies" out for the first time! Hardening off the veggie seedlings I started in the basement with my 2 1/2 year-old daughter, Maya (who calls them the "Plant Babies"). Drizzling some water on these poor babies before fertilizing … the plan is to transfer them to the Earth-Box self-watering patio container garden I bought for $50 at Wegmans (our supermarket). I know $50 is a little pricey, but I’m hoping to avoid more moments like this where I’m drizzling water over dried-out, half dead seedlings in peat pots because I got busy and forgot to water. Since then, I’ve also learned there are plenty of cheaper self-watering containers out there. But I admit, this was just an easy pick-up …

The "raised bed" I had been planning originally as an island within the lawn for the Flower Carpet^® roses, euphorbia, spring heath and Festival Grass^® cordyline I’m planning on getting. However, after I learned that an island the size I wanted to make would cost a thousand dollars or more in dirt (and after considering that my golden retriever, Buddy, rips up all my new plantings), I deweeded and cleaned up this pile of dirt (from the former owner’s pool excavation) behind the invisible dog fence in the back hedgerow and voila – a dog-proof, free raised bed! Maybe not the stuff of glossy magazines, but good enough for me …

Me amending the soil (I still have to do a soil test to find out the acidity) by working in a layer of organic compost … next comes the black pine bark mulch for moisture retention and weed suppression.