Vegetable garden

We've finally past the last freeze. It stayed cold a lot longer than usual, but it's finally a good time to get things into the ground.

A. loves to help garden -- watering plants, digging up dirt, pulling weeds -- so we get a lot of time outside to work on the yard. She's constantly asking to go outside. "I garden!"

We've been doing a lot of stuff. I refreshed the herbs around our patio outside the kitchen -- replanting the basil that the freezes had killed, getting the cilantro into the ground, and adding Thai basil. JJ put some low-voltage lights along the front walk.

But my big project has been a vegetable garden. I cleared out an area about 12 x 24 in the back of the back yard. In the back half I planted a couple pumpkin and watermelon plants. In the front half I'm in the process of putting in carrots, onions, potatoes, and peppers.

And we also have strawberry plants to go around the heat pump and blackberry bushes to line the rear of the property. We have areas to plant on the back and two sides of the house. And we have a landscaper coming next week to talk about putting some trees along the driveway and fix up the planting area near the front door.

Wow. Lots to do for people who've never had dirt of their own before!