Green thumbing

First harvest of the year - a Manitoba Tomato. It's not that big - about the size of a ping pong ball - but it's the first one that's managed to make it through a slight blight infestation that's attacked at least one of my plants. But it's a garden tomato... mmm.

And my lavender! Oh, my sweet, sweet lavender... this is the third time I've tried to grow lavender in my many years of gardening. This is the first time I haven't killed it within a month of planting it. It's flowering - as the photo shows - and sprouting and strong... and it smells so wonderful.

I'm already making plans on how to keep it alive through our winter, which may prove to be a bit more of a challenge for me than most people. Not only do I procrastinate like a pro, the way our backyard is landscaped (and I use that term very loosely), the lavender (and my only yellow rose bush) is in the lowest point of the yard. Our backyard is essentially a bowl-shape so everything tends to collect right where the lavender is; add in the windtrap that the backyard becomes in the winter and waist-deep snow and keeping this particular lavender plant alive - and thriving next year - will be a battle worth winning.

Today's a pretty hectic day for us - we're heading out of town this afternoon for doctor's appointments (yes, I live in a city of 50,000, but my family doctor is 45 minutes away in a small town of 1,500... yay, Canadian healthcare!) and supper at my parent's, so instead of listing a new piece I don't have time to finish properly, I'm going to have a surprise deal announced via Twitter - @nisseworks - this afternoon (within the next 5 hours). Follow me on Twitter and you can have a chance for an amazing deal on something in my shop.

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And a new design for the blog! I like it, after all the hiccups last evening... clean, not flashy, simple. I give it 3 months before I change it again :)

On the fence

Things I learned while building a fence:

• Any plan you had at the beginning will be trashed before you even start.
• A yard stick can be your best friend. 
• Measure twice, cut once is not enough; measure a dozen times and then measure again before you cut.
• There's a good chance the reason you got a killer deal on your lumber is because it's all the stuff they couldn't sell to anyone else. 
• A post hole digger is not the same thing as a post hole auger.
• Wet ground is not easier to deal with.
• Rhubarb plants have massive roots.
• Toddlers like to think they're helping by bringing screws to the builders two at a time.
• Posts will magically shift and bend out of place overnight, and the movement won't be noticeable until the fence is done.
• You will run out of the one size of wood you need the most, but will have oodles left over of the size you only needed a couple of.
• Cut wood soaks up water like a sponge.
• $3 work gloves protect your hands from splinters just as well as the $20 do.

In the end, building a fence with Keith and his parents was an experience. It wasn't great, it wasn't horrific, but I know now the process of it. After three days, we're mostly finished - only two gates left to do up. Keith's on holidays for the rest of the week so we should be able to get them done up before he goes back next week.

I love how our yard looks now, though... it looks much bigger and tidier, at least until you see my very overgrown garden that's going to be fixed up this weekend. I like how we not only have a way to keep Maddy in the yard, but also added a lot of value to our property. We have a fairly large lot and are on a corner, in between 3 schools. Our sidewalks see a lot of traffic throughout the day, so having a fence up to cut down on some of the sound is nice.

Next up for the yard is doing up my garden. We're going to the garden centre on Friday to pick up the plants, seeds and soil to put them in on Sunday. I've got a general idea of what I want to do for veggies this year, but I'm still debating what to do about flowers. I have a lot of daisies that I'd like to move, but they're in bloom right now and I really don't want to risk killing them. I could always just do a variety of generic flowers - pansies, petunias, marigolds - but I'd also like to try more butterfly- or bee-friendly flowers in our front garden.  Decisions, decisions...

We're planning on spending a lot of time outside this summer. I'm going to attempt to coordinate my work so that I can actually do some of it (ie. embroidery) outside, while Maddy runs around the yard playing. Really, I'm just looking forward to having somewhere besides the house to spend the summer relaxing.

Spring has sprung

And has it ever... when Keith left the house at 3:30 this afternoon, there were only a few sprouts. At 5pm, there were hundreds.

Glee!