A few days ago I got 4 landscape timbers and used a *gasp* circular saw to cut them to what lengths I needed. I then used wooden dowels to hold them in place (at a hill side) and filled in the *raised terrace* with leftover soil and peat moss from the gardens.

Today I put together our hammock (dogs love to lay on my belly while we swing! LOL). I also created my lettuce patch and fenced it in (3' tall chicken wire fencing to keep the pups out), same with our pumpkin/squash patch. :)

All in all I've planted:
2 butterfly bushes (which the next door neighbors dog ATE! GRR!)
8 tomato plants, 2 1/2 flats of flowers, over 2000 flower/herb seeds, over 100 vegetable seeds, 20 strawberry plants, and about 150 bulbs.

My garden WILL be a backyard paradise! (even if it kills me! LOL)

So, how is YOUR garden growing?

Ours is growing well.
Round one of broccili and carrots are thriving. The herbs and onions we planted got buldozed by a 6 yo and his toys. :ggggrrr:

Round two radishes, carrots, and watermelon have sprouted.

Dh's hot pepper plant is resprouting and I threw another bag of seeds at it lol. It has become sort of a science experiment. He want hot peppers I don't want them in my garden but have found a corner for them that is out of my way. Yes, I do water them but I don't much care what happens to them.

Round three will be any day now. Gotta get some flowers in there. 2 types of sunflowers and ds picked up an assorted packet for what used to be his toy area untill he lost all of his outside toys for continued not listening (digs under the fence so the dog next door can come visit) and destruction of the garden.

I've still got two small containers that I haven't decided what to plant in. Last year I let the kids use them but I'm not so sure. Maybe I plant some flowers in them just for giggles.

Well we are finally at the "last frost date" for western WA so I am now planting way more seed and stuff. But nothing is really growing like crazy yet. I should have put in peas, but I needed time to take out the strawberries from the bed they were supposed to be in, and that is just happening now... so we will see how my peas hold up to being late this year. Hopefully the summer will not get hot until the end... but who knows. I have lots of things to plant tomorrow, but nothing growing. I am off to soak seeds. :)

Love Val

Bit of the green eyed monster here, we're still a month from our last frost date. I just now started a few things in the pots inside. I've found that if I give them 4 weeks rather than the 6 reccomended they do better. When I was giving them 6 weeks they would get to big near the end and we would always end up having a late frost & loosing both the plants outside from cold & inside from space.

We're swapping for a load of fresh top soil for the 2 raised bed gardens. I've still got Father Dom's to pick up. I raked leaves & twigs today and pulled weeds from the narrow garden near my back door. Cleared tons of stuff from under DH's wild grape vine. DD is getting 1/2 the narrow garden to plant all her flowers and was having a blast digging in the dirt with her special new gardening tools & gardening gloves today. Never mind that there is nothing in there but one measily raspberry, she thought it was great to be "helping garden".

I'm also in the middle of building a trellis for DH's wild grape vine. It's a great vine, covers the U-G-L-Y rusted back fence, but also likes to grow straight into the gate. Wonder if the birds that live in the vine will come back this year?

Chole

I *could* plant more, if dd would let me put her down, and if dh would finish hogging the yard waste bin so I can pull the blah bushes out of the front planter... We did get morning glories (annual, not perinneal) and moonflowers in on both sides of the porch last week, to run up the trellises (trellii???), and we have sprouts! Today ds & I staked out the corners of the area we want to grow a sunflower house, so we may start planting that this week. We're doing a 7x7 square, with sunflower walls and a morning glory roof. Figured that since our backyard is nothing but weeds, this would be the perfect year to do the house!