Weekend Projects

Spring is here!  It's been here about a month now and we are completely enjoying it!  Our winter garden finally started kicking out tomatoes in high-gear about three weeks ago.  We enjoyed a final harvest of cabbage and lettuce before Scott and Francois tilled everything up when I was in Minneapolis.

Also, our Lime tree flowered for the first time this spring and now little buds are growing! 

We're really excited, especially since our Mojito Mint (Yes, that is it's name - it's a little sweeter, developed just for mojitos) is growing like crazy.  Our neighbor's tree puts out TONS of limes each year so we're anticipating great mojitos on the porch with everyone soon!

As we prepare for summer, we decided it was high time to get a lawn in our back yard.  When we first bought the house, it was a dump back there!  There was a ratty fence, garbage, abandoned lattice and carpet buried in two feet of leaves (that were composting very nicely - but allowed for no grass to grow).  We cleaned all that up and trimmed as many branches up as we could, and then discovered that every time it rains hard, we get three inches of standing water in the back yard.  So then we got 4 sq yards of dirt delivered and Scott planted grass seed.  No luck.  Next he attempted to transplant plugs of St. Augustine grass from the next yard over.  Some took off, but it was too thin and frail and mostly the dogs just destroyed it running around the yard.  Also, we still flooded with rain.

Our last ditch effort entails ordering the dirt and sod and going big, doing the whole yard at once.  In preparation we had the broken cement next to the house pulled up, and yanked the chain-link fence out between us and a neighbor.

Saturday morning I freaked out a little when the giant semi truck first pulled up LOADED with pallets of sod and thought perhaps our neighbor and Scott got a little over-ambitious.  No fear though, the driver unloaded our two pallets and continued on his merry way.  Five minutes later the dump truck came and deposited 12 sq yards of dirt on our driveway.  We only ordered and paid for 8, but the truck driver accidentally loaded and brought too much, so just gave it to us.

Sunday I finished up a class for school and then headed out back to help Scott for the day.  We spread dirt for quite a while and then began the sod-laying.  Just when we were starting to get rather grumpy and tired our wonderful friends Hunter and Sashi showed up and helped us finish everything, which made the whole process so much more fun.  

Pre-dirt and sod (Saturday morning)

Almost finished 

(I am just now realizing I didn't take an "after" picture. Sorry. I will soon, as I am far too lazy to get up now and go out in the rain to get one for you).  All I can say is that it is going to be awesome and I am so excited for it all to take root and start spreading out!  We've been watering twice a day (except the last two days as it has poured and poured) and are really hoping this works!

Oh, and last thing!  Here is our NEW garden that Scott has been working on for the last week!  If you look closely you can see our version of "Wilson" (Home Improvement - anyone? anyone?) over the fence behind :)