the hardest parts are done!

When it wasn't raining, the weather over the weekend was beautiful, and we took advantage of it and got quite a bit accomplished. Neil put all the strings up on the trellis so I could get the tomato seedlings in the ground.  

It's still chilly out at night, and we're not quite past our last freeze date, so I put little makeshift greenhouses over each seedling. I pushed the soil up around them and they steamed right up, and have kept the little plants plenty warm through a couple of light frosts now.

Sparky has learned to bury his bones now. He used to do a half-assed job of it by kinda sticking one between a couple of couch cushions, but he has moved on to outdoor burying!  It started in the straw... (bet you can't tell where he hid it!)

but quickly progressed to dirt. We didn't actually SEE him bury one in the dirt, but the evidence is strong.

Let's see... Neil worked on irrigation, his favorite! He got water to all the boxes and the automatic timer set up, so we can leave for a couple of days and not worry about the garden melting. 

And I worked on getting everything in the ground. All the seedlings that I had started indoors and had sprouted are now in the ground (not just the tomatoes, but the peppers and herbs too!), and the seeds that had to be planted directly in the ground are in now as well. 

I love old things. And boxes. And jars. And carts, things with wheels. Baskets, and dirt! So planting involves many things I love... my seed box is an old wooden delivery box, filled with jars of seeds. I brought them outside while I worked, and set it all up on my cart along with reference gardening books, tools, and dog bones. The sound of seeds rattling against the glass when I push the cart makes me want to create reasons to move it around, so I can hear it again.

Anyway, Neil also got the trellis for the grapes built and installed - it looks great! All that's left to do on that is tighten up the wire supports, but he needs to let the concrete footings for the posts dry first. 

While he did that, I took pictures of stuff.  Look, sunflowers!

And geraniums! I love all the bright colors geraniums come in. They always remind me of spring.

Another tiring weekend!  Oh, check out my awesome hat! Neil made me that the other night.

I made him one too.  Unfortunately this is the only photo I got of him wearing it, and it's a shot of him through the window doing the dishes. So it's not a great picture, but trust me, it's really really nice.

I guess that's about it. We got just about all the hard prep work done, and now it's just waiting for things to grow for awhile. I'll end with a pretty good overall view of the farm!