Thursday, June 30, 2016

Father's Day

I had intentions of sharing our recent camping trip, and when I uploaded pictures I came across some pretty cute Father's Day smiles.

Keith wanted to have his family stop over for a fun BBQ, like last year.  The day was relaxed and happy.  Lots of tasty choices from the grill, oven and slow cooker, then apple pie was a nice change of dessert.

The boys took another rock photo, had a fun time racing each other and went mudding in the woods.  All the Cleveland Dad's had an especially great night watching their basketball team win the championship too.  The following day was crazy around Northeast Ohio, and while the boys and I were going to check out new bicycles at Dicks, we sprung for haircuts to avoid the fan rush for championship gear.



Happy belated Father's Day to all!

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Greenbrier Garden

Gardening has progressed quite a bit this month here on Greenbrier Drive.



Last year was pretty difficult, but an excellent first year of experience.  We learned mostly about garden pests (remember the slug wars....ahhh) and how water runoff redirection was badly required.  This Spring we ultimately decided the best way to battle standing water was to build up the bed.  Lots of top soil, peat moss and a double doss of garden soil was added after weeding, tilling and expanding.  Our berries were still coming in nicely, and I was nervous to dig them up, but they seem to be thriving.



I decided to take a break this year from zucchini, summer squash and cucumbers.  Last year was so exciting, then so disappointing.  This year I opted for additional herbs, cherry tomatoes, onions, a few different kinds of peppers and snap peas!  In just 4 days of planting some of our seeds, kale-broccoli-spinach and the snap peas have ALL sprouted!!  It's SO exciting.

AJ planting the snap peas, which will grow on the little white trelis
Look at the tiny little green lines all the way to the left!!!  Sprouts!!!

Later this week the green wire is going to replaced with the same screen we used for the door, and I'll need to figure out a net to keep out the birds, who have already helped themselves to a handful of berries.  The inital height of the garden was too much to take in, but it would have served it's purpose in preventing deer from eating our veggies-like last year.  So netting should help stop them as well since I already had Keith shorten the posts.

Also, I remain on the lookout for slug issues and have a copper plan ready to put into action.