This weekend was our weekend to finish the odds and ends of projects. Hubby had plenty of home 'to do' list items while I was once again dodging rain drops outside.

Last fall I began the what should have been a easy planting bed project. It's one of those areas you see from the back yard. I'm sure we all have those spots in our yards. Ours is the back wall of the garage. It's big, long and yellow.

Last year I removed the grass and planted chokeberry bushes in the area. They were chosen for their size, delicate white flowers and juicy dark purple berries. It's one of those bushes seldom know about and when they first hear the name think I'm crazy.

Don't worry folks I'm not poisoning my kids! Chokeberries are simply a cross between a blackberry and cherry. It's the type of bush only spoken of and remembered by our Grandparents or at local farmer's markets.


I spent all winter looking at the wall as you see it above and still felt as if the area needed something. This spring I hit the jackpot at our local garden center with a 50% off sale on 3 matching trellises and 3 clematis vines with red blooms. Squeeee!


As I finished installing my goodies I noticed there was nothing in front of the service door. A path was certainly required here so off to the local garden center for some flagstone pieces. Voila!


Now I know I'm supposed to be 'done' with this project but I'm wondering if I should add some small perennials in front of the chokeberries? Perhaps some English Lavender to send a lovely fragrance throughout the air as you pass by or pick berries?

Now for the question I'm sure some of you have: How do you use the chokeberry? The best eating are preserves, pies, sauces or syrups. I plan on using them for jelly.

I guess I could go through the long process of giving you a recipe or even showing you how to make jelly but there are so many sites available for this so I'll just give you the link for one of my favorite sites.

As I contemplate if I should tackle refinishing another dresser in the master bedroom or redecorate my office I thought I'd share the hanging baskets I completed last weekend.

I love me some hanging baskets. Only problem is the pre-potted versions are expensive and they dry out way to fast for my liking. I just don't have the time to water them twice a day or the extra cash to replace them during the season. So I've come up with a easy solution to the dried out hanging basket issue. Ready?

First, I purchase all the flowers and moisture control potting soil. I have my own hanging baskets (four of them) so for this project I spent $35.00 for the extra large bag of dirt (I have half the bag of soil left for other planting projects) and flowers.


Then I line the baskets with a grocery store plastic bag, add soil and plant away. Yup, all you need is one of those cheap - sit in the landfill for an eternity - plastic bags from your local grocery store!



I have four of these adorning my front entryway. Before I started adding the plastic bag liner the baskets needed to be watered twice a day. With the plastic bag liner I water once every couple of days. Sweet!

Easy Peasy right! So, if you love you some hanging baskets but hate to spend time watering them give this little trick a try ~ you'll be glad you did.
Happy planting everyone!

Veggie garden treats for this past week.

What we will be doing this weekend:

If only we could have one week of warm weather. Sigh.

Do cucumbers normally grow twisty? WTF?

Looking at the desk you wouldn't guess it took 3 weekends of window shopping at 20 various stores (including our local thrift stores). We finally gave up and went to the not so local bare wood furniture haunt. Little Man picked it out and declared it had to match his existing bedroom furniture (natural oak). So I've spent all week sanding and applying three coats of varnish.

At least Sponge Bob & his friends are enjoying the desk.

Needless to say the canning smells and varnish smell was over the top this week. SO good yet SO nauseating!

I'm off to take some shots of hubby's work for you.

Despite the super sticky, wear extra deodorant, humid weather and completely soak you in 3 seconds flat rain storms most of the weekend I was able to shake my fist at the pesky rabbits and pick out whats left of my carrots. In the rabbits defense they are some pretty darn good carrots!

I've also been struggling in keeping up with my two zucchini plants. As you can see from the picture, the zucchini is massive. My zucchini plants seem to be on steroids they do not produce those small little veggies you get all sliced up in manageable bites in the restaurant ... no sirree! ... I've got zucchini logs! Since this picture I've picked two more and have two more ready to be picked in the garden.



I think I'm adding a small veggie stand to hubby's to do list. I'm pretty close to becoming that little old lady who sits on her porch giving zucchini away to the neighborhood.

Then there's these little pumpkins below. Three plants have taken over the garden and nearby grass. Hubby is nice enough to place them back into the garden instead of running them over with the mower but I can tell his patience is running thin after today's fiasco. Today he had to actually pull vines from the grass; they are beginning to root in the grass whenever you turn you back for a moment. Sneaky devils!



I wonder exactly how many of these little saucy tarts are really hiding under all the leaves and vines. I may have to increase the veggie stand to accommodate three pumpkin plants ... look out neighborhood!

I tried to snap a picture of my single apple but the temps were so steamy the picture turned out foggy. Don't worry, I've brave the tick population in our meadow/budding apple orchard for you this week to get the perfect shot. Let's just hope I get to the apple before the deer. I just know they are eyeing up the apple trees ~ darn it all! Maybe we can strike a compromise - I'll chop up some zucchini and leave it in the meadow for them if they promise not to eat my apple trees or our first lonesome apple.

It's been many moons since I've blogged and I'm not sure where I should begin. Honest. My attention span has dropped to a facebook level or dare I even say what some would call tweets.

We had quite the scare last week. hubby went into the ER, in the middle of nowhereville, on Monday night with chest pains. After an agonizing night of waiting for test results we still aren't quite sure what is going on other than the pains becoming more prevalent every day. With heart disease running so strongly in his side of the family the doctor has ordered a stress test this Wednesday. I'm still a bit stunned about the whole thing so besides being pretty worried I'm not sure how I'm feeling.

To deal with the stress I've been spending a lot of time in our garden. We started a garden this year on the spur of the moment. The kids were interested in vegetable gardening and it all ballooned from there. It's a small garden but we've gone through one batch of radishes and the second batch is almost ready to harvest. I'm looking forward to the sweet corn, pumpkins, strawberries, carrots, beans, tomatoes, zuccinni and watermelon babies showing up soon.

Needless to say the garden was a good idea even before I knew my stress level this summer was going to be 'kicked up a notch' as someone famous (but doesn't send me money for advertising so I won't mention his name) would say.