This is a close up of some of our snow peas

planted behind the broccoli.....

This is our broccoli and pea bed

 

These are our herbs that survived the winter

Rosemary and Basil didn't make it

but the rest is doing fine!

Broccoli and Peas

So all four of us have been working pretty hard getting things around the house ready for spring planting.  We spread 800 lbs. of manure a few weeks ago, and worked it into the beds.  We dug two new beds in the side yard for peppers, and crowder peas.  Bridget set up a twine pyramid for the peas to climb, and we laid down several layers of the weed control covering so that we hopefully won't have to weed the pepper bed.  At the boat shack out back we went ahead and planted snow peas below the wall trellis and broccoli in front of that.  The hope is that the peas will climb the wall behing the broccoli.  For the last 2 days before work, we've been working on window boxes for the back porch.  We've finished two of them, still have two to go.  We're going to put two above last years herb garden, (which was fantastic last year, and everything except the rosemary and basil is coming back this year) to add to our herb selection.  We're planting more tomatoes this year than last, and more cucumbers.  Also going to plant birdhouse gourds at a trellis I made for the front corner of the boat shack. 
Bridget bought several sets of seeds that we plan on using up front.  The area up there is complete shade, (a giant maple tree blocks the morning sun, by early morning.  She got something called Dutchman pipe vine that we're going to try this year.  The Hyacinth bean vine that we've used in the past only does well in lots of sun, so hopefully this will be a good replacement, it's a shade vine.  The flowers grow on the backside of the vine, which we're hoping will overtake our front porch if all goes according to plan.  We've also been contacted by a friend who is dividing up her hostas this week, so we're planting some of those in the front bed.  Bridget found something called creeping thyme to plant along the bank of the driveway front driveway.  It has these pretty purple flowers that spread.  She planted iris and star flowers on the side of the house near the driveway, and we have giant sunflower seeds that we're putting in near our bedroom window. 
We're going to put Hyacinth bean vine and Scarlet runner beans together to climb the back porch.  The Hyacinth bean vine has these pretty purple flowers, and the runner beans have deep red flowers.  So we're hoping that this summer will give us a lot of fun gardening to play with!  We're excited! 

Here's a picture of dutchman pipe flowers, hopefully we'll have something like this if all goes well.

Building Improvements ~ Really?

So first it was the billboards all over town....which they had finally
taken down....and then I came into work the other day and one entire wall
had this on it!  I'm gonna see if we can get a Macey's float made next,
to hang above the building.  Or better yet, a beacon symbol from space!!!  World tour baby~!
I wonder how much this thing cost the company......
stop the madness!