one thing off the garden to-do list

In an effort to have some colour and beauty greet us at the door, I planted peonies in most of the hanging pots and a flower box a few weeks back. They are so bright and cheery.

Around the same time, I painted all of our toenails green...yes: me, son, and hubby. We are ready for spring, even if it's been too wet to do much of anything in the garden and yard.

I have noticed the grass is coming up and have asked my hubby to put down grass seed. He's been hesitant citing not wanting it to become bird food as his main reason. I may have to take matters into my own hand...and he suggested as much yesterday when I mentioned it again. :)

But there wasn't time for that. Our goal was to reign in our marionberry vines. Once we snipped off the dead vines, there wasn't much left (typical) but several long, new vines. On a garden tour last year (or the year before?) we spied a series of berries one couple were growing -- in a circular fashion. GREAT space saver! Today, the first day of spring, we braved the wind and the cold and tamed our vines into a circle (see photo, above). Hopefully it'll work out for us.

The onions and leeks I left in the ground are growing nicely overwinter and I noticed the strawberries are showing lots of green leaves.

We have big plans to reconfigure the front and back gardens. One year (maybe next year?) we'll be able to just start planting and sowing without having to do so much moving, lifting, building, carrying, placing, drilling, etc. That will be nice.

But for now, there's change afoot to take advantage of the best sun lit areas of our spaces.

The boxes in the back will be moved and stacked against the fence. We may add one or two more along the fence and will give some thought to what we want to do in the place where the boxes are now (center of the garden). I'm hoping the strawberries will be amiable to the move and will keep producing.

In the front garden, we're doing away with the idea of a rain garden. Right where we thought we'd put in a rain garden just happens to get the best sunlight. Here in the great Northwest, getting as much sun as possible is rather important. We'll expand the veggie garden to where the rain garden was going to be as it gets the most sun. That means removing some of the rock path and re-setting it elsewhere. Whoa boy...that's going to be a lot of work. :)

Oh yea, then, we want to relocate the two (full) compost bins near the potato boxes -- on the opposite side of the garden. It'll be work, but not too bad as we'll have emptied them out and turned the compost into the garden soil anyway. There are a couple of benefits to this: 1) the bins will be in direct sunlight which will mightily help the composting process and 2) the bins will be far away from our neighbhor's house. They've never complained, but once or twice a year when it's really hot, those bins do not smell good.

The garden worktable is located next to the compost bins and I'm looking forward to moving them to the other side of the garden as well (to where the large green window is hanging). My hubby wants to thread the grape vines over that area, so it sounds like it'll be a nicely shaded area in which to work.

Where the worktable and bins are now will become a nicer BBQ area...maybe with reclaimed brick set into the ground - hopefully we can find some, maybe on CraigsList.

A lot of work, but it feels like putting paint to canvas and I am looking forward to seeing what we come up with and how it turns out.

Happy Spring!