My Garden

Once we really got going today, the bulk of our efforts focused on my garden. We realized earlier this week, during the heavy rainfall, that there were no gutters on the section of house right next to the garden. As a result, the water was running straight off the house and into the planter box, pummeling my poor tomatoes. I solved the problem temporarily by moving the tomato plants, but we really needed to get a small chunk of gutter installed. So that was what Gus did. Hooray!!

Meanwhile, I moved my plants around (again), cleaned up the dirt-caked back wall of the planter, and installed bird netting over the top of the entire thing. The design of the planter is really cool, because it allows me to make a sort of roof over it by using skinny PVC pipes (which are easily removed-- they just slide into some segments of thicker pipe that are attached to the inside of the planter). Oh, and I also planted some alyssum flowers around the edges, since the kids picked those out for me on Mother's Day. The kids were very eager to help, so they dug the holes for me. So cute!

This is what the garden looks like at the moment. I still need to trim and secure the bird netting better, and get cages around my tomatoes. And of course, there is still a lot of space for the plants I am starting from seedlings inside the house. My lettuce is already going bonkers! I can't wait to get it into the ground!

We finished up our work just in time to head to my friend Caryn's house for a cookout. It was a lovely afternoon and evening! The kids played and got filthy, just as they should. We had yummy food, a reasonable amount of alcohol, and everyone had fun playing out in the eighty-plus degree heat. The kiddos even got to make s'mores again! Nikos was very adamant about the fact that he knew how to make them already, haha! But it was a great time, and the late bedtime for the kids meant they crashed pretty much as soon as we got them in bed. Everybody wins! :)