Gardening!

Ok, I've said goodnight twice already at the end of two different posts tonight, and here I am starting another one.  Oye.  I'm a mess!  But I have to tell you guys about the gardening we did or I'll forget and never get it down.  Ok, so Sunday was beautiful out!  We went to lunch after church with Sis' family and Mama and Daddy at Applebee's in Andover.  Applebee's is right next to Atwoods, which always puts me in a gardening mood.  So I asked Michael if we could go in and get stuff for me to plant and herb window garden.  I found a planter (that we intend to zip tie to the deck when it's warmer out, probably sometime in May) and seeds, which I never use because I don't have a bunch of luck with them, but I figure it might actually work this time...  Michael said he had potting soil in the garage, so we came home.  However, when we got home, he didn't have quite enough, so off to Lowe's we went.  During our various drives we discussed the garden and what we wanted to do with it this year, including adding manure to make the ground better for our plants.  Long story short, we want to Lowe's for a bag of potting soil and left with a bag of potting soil and a dozen bags of manure.  ;)  We came home and planted my herbs, basil, oregano, rosemary, and chives.  Then we headed to the back yard to begin work on the garden.  First we pulled up the fence.  Our little white picket fence was designed to keep the dogs out, but each season it leaned a bit more, and when the dogs realized they could jump over it (or almost), it leaned further until parts were literally layong on the ground.  We decided it was time to do away with the fence.  Michael used the rake, hoe, and shovel to clean up the dead grass, plants, and leaves that basically covered the entire garden.  I spread manure over my strawberry patch and cut holes in big sheets of cardboard for the strawberries to grow through, but hopefully not much grass or weeds.  We covered the cardboard with the leaves Michael cleaned up.  I filled in the rest of my asparagus trench and added manure to it as well.  I have to tell you, I basically LOVE having plants in my garden that will come back each year!  Makes me think I'm not such a crappy gardener afterall.  ;)  We haven't finished our work on the rest of the garden, because we wore ourselves out, but the plan for the rest is to till up (by hand, heaven help us) the rets of the garden and mix the manure in with the existing soil.  Then, when it's time to plant my garden, I intend to do what I did with the strawberries and lay out huge pieces of cardboard to keep the grass and weeds out, but cut holes for my plants to grow.  We'll see how it goes.  I've also done reading online about mulching your garden, so I may try that this year as well.  We'll see.  :)  Every Spring I get ambitious about my garden.  I'm excited to already have some work done on it.  I hope the nice Spring preview days, that are left this winter, come during the weekend so Michael and I can do some work outdoors (although I know eventually I'm going to lose his help in the garden to the crabgrass battle in the yard, suggestions to combat this horrible stuff are appreciated).  I guess with global warming I can expect Spring earlier and earlier each year.  *sigh*  Hope you're enjoying the warm weather as much as we are!  Enjoy it while you can!  Winter will be back before you know it.  (For real this time) Goodnight, All!