800 pounds of dirt

At this very moment, I am sitting on my front porch watching Ami paint stems on my walls so I can glue fabric flowers to them...but more about that later.  Its been awhile since I posted anything and I know my fans (you know who you are) are begging for more...but its been a little slow in garden world...until today. 

It started with a relatively quick trip to Lowe's for dirt.  And yes, we truly bought 800 pounds today.  Sounds like a massive amount, doesn't it?  It isn't really, but we are hopeful that it will  be enough for the two boxes Uncle A is about to build us.  Here's a picture of the boxes in piece form...drying from a nice coat of weatherproofing...

They will be boxes in the next day or so I think. 

I bought broccoli, cucumbers and brussel sprout plants at Lowe's as well because my broccoli is looking sad and pathetic...however much to my delight, we have brussel sprout plants sprouting in the garden where we planted them from seed...I just wanted more.  Here are my sprouts...right in the middle...and in the bottom right corner of this picture is one of the ones I bought at Lowe's.  :)

We also planted more strawberries, rhubarb, a ton of herbs, lettuce, beets, kale, broccoli, tomatoes and the cukes.  All in "alternative" containers-except for the strawberries and the rhubarb which had already determined garden locations.  We also planted a ton of flowers.  Oh...note the containers for the tomatoes, and one extra for the strawberries.  We are trying the "topsy turvy" craze...keep you posted.  Here are a ton of pics:

Oh and one more thing about the back...remember all of Uncle A's stuff?  Well the spirit moved him today and its to the side of the house like we have been wanting.  Look!

Gone!  There is a ton more space over there too!!  Plenty of room for small monkeys to play soccer and hockey and run around.  Lovely.

And last but not least, I need to show you the front of the house.  Ami got the landscaping timbers in place and planted a ton of stuff yesterday...bravo Ami! 

That lone bush by itself is the lilac tree that my kids got me for Mother's Day last year...I never planted it, so it lived for a year in its bucket, and now it has a nice home.  The rock pile is apparently called a cairn.  I am not sure if that's how you spell it, but Ami said "Hey, do you like my cairn?" And I said "Cairn?  You mean rock pile?"  Its Scottish, I guess.  We are quite fancy here in the hood. 

Please stay tuned for the enclosed front porch project.  Its where all my little seedlings have been living since I moved them "outdoors", so I am including it in the garden blog.  Plus, wait until you see.  Its just too damn cute not to share.