hippie johnny

 today was really the first day it felt like spring outside.  i've been having some issues with my allergies, so i knew spring was right around the corner, but today was nice and warm and sunny and i finally got to go outside and get some gardening started!  this is our little patch, in the backyard.  it's about three feet by 15-20 (?) feet.  when we moved in, it was full of azalea bushes, and so i ripped them out.  actually, the boychik did that for me.  i know, azaleas are pretty, but you can't eat an azalea, and the one thing my husband and i whole heartedly agree on is that we want an edible garden. we want productive plants around, not just pretty ones.  i think my mother-in-law was a little agog that i was all for just tearing them out and chopping them up to add to the compost pile; she thought we should relocate them.  i'm not a huge fan of azaleas or rhododendrons, even if i do live in the pacific northwest, where it's practically mandatory that you LOVE them.  plus, it's my house! i'm going to rip out all the stuff in the landscaping i don't like.  it's so liberating. 

last year i splurged and bought myself a pair of gardening clogs because 1) they're red, 2) they're paisley and 3) can you really be a gardener without clogs? i think not.  i love that you can get them all muddy and yucky and because they are plastic, you can just rinse them off and leave them outside to dry.  which was good, because after i took this photo i got them pretty grubby.  i went through our little plot, pulled out rocks and weeds, turned the soil over, and added a little bit of fertilizer and a bag of organic potting soil to enrich it all (the compost isn't ready). i had pretty much forgotten how you have to ready the bed before you can plant, so i'm glad i didn't have my heart set on planting a bunch of stuff.  the boychik came out with me and finished chopping the azaleas up, helped me move around some of the big bags of soil, and assisted with the turning and watering of the compost.  it was nice to have someone to work with.  we listened to our favorite podcast, pseudopod, while we worked, which was also fun. 

before we did all that work, we went to home depot for some soil and plant markers (also known as "pointy tongue depressers").  i had to buy some seeds because OMG there were so many.  the boychik wants to experiment with sunflowers, so we bought a few packs of those, i picked up a few varieties of radishes, some beans, and carrots.  we also have a lot of herbs starting and to plant, as well as a few cool heirloom, organic varieties from baker creek seeds.  i'm excited to see how those do.  i've never had a garden, so we'll see how well i do this year, or how big i fail. 

also, we went out and had breakfast together, and some nice old couple asked how long dave and i had been married.  we told them six months  and they said they thought at least 12 years.  i think the giantness of the boychik threw them off!  but it was funny.  one of them thought we'd been married for 15 years!  which of course, would have made me a child bride.  ha!