It seems that as soon as the lovely spring flowers and trees start to show their first blooms the rabbits show up in our yard and start munching on the new buds. We have a beautiful patch of lilac flowers that the rabbits seem to enjoy the most. As cute as rabbits are, I would really like to keep my flowers! I tried a few different tricks and found that Deer Off spray (bought from my local home supply store) really works. Okay, it doesn’t smell very nice when you first apply it, but it keeps the critters away. You just have to remember to spray again after it rains.
While I was outside spraying I couldn’t help but notice all of the yard work that needs to be done (again!) And along with the spring flowers come the weeds of course. Maybe I should learn to love the weeds? Even if I could I don’t think my hubby would. He’s already started his first round of yard care and attacking the weeds in the lawn was top on his list. And to be honest, I don’t like it when they try to take over my flower beds either.
The weather has been so cold I don’t think I’ve stepped out in to my backyard in weeks. And when it’s not cold, it’s raining, so the ground is saturated. When I look out the back windows, everything looks so gray and bare compared to lush colors of the spring and summer. I see that the squirrels have knocked over the bird bath again in their attempt to jump up to the bird feeder. As a matter of fact I’m overdue to refill the feeder, so I guess I’ll have to get myself into the backyard soon to take care of it and have a good look at the rest of the yard while I’m at it.
When I look at the winter yard, it makes me miss spending warm evenings on the back porch, though it doesn’t make me miss the mosquitos which come uninvited every year. We’ll need to spruce up some plants this spring, and trim back a few overgrown bushes. Our vegetable patch was pretty sad last year, so we’re going to have the soil tested this year before we do any planting. Yes, I’m looking forward to a beautiful warm spring.
I love to garden when I have the time, though I’m not practiced enough to be a pro at it. I don’t know the names of all of the plants we have around the yard, but I do try to keep care of them and keep the weeds to a minimum. One of our favorite annual traditions is planting a small vegetable garden. We don’t have a very big yard, so the spot is located in one of the open corners next to the shed and one of our big evergreens. The spot seems to have a good mix of sunshine and shade, though we live pretty far South so the summertime sun can be pretty brutal at times. As a whole, we’ve been able to grow some pretty good veggies over the years, mostly tomatoes, eggplant, pepper, cucumbers.
This year our little garden is failing miserably for some reason. Before planting we had added a good dose of organic fertilizer into the soil to replenish it. When we removed the plants from their containers we loosened the dirt as we always do, everything seemed to get off to the right start. But that was about a month and a half ago, and the plants are quite stunted. Oddly some tomatoes are popping out on a couple of the plants yet they only stand a foot or so high, which we’ve never encountered before. So we’ve turned the surrounding soil again and added some fresh fertilizer. I don’t know how much that will help. Otherwise it might be time to check with one of the local garden centers to see if we can salvage anything or if we still have time to start over.
