Gardening Woes

I decided a couple of months ago I would try to grow a few vegetables since I'm missing my dad's fresh produce from the B-N-V; I started with broccoli and two types of lettuce as mentioned in this post.  Sadly most of the lettuce either got too much water or was frozen by some of the cold nights we had.  I just figured, "no huge loss, at least the broccoli looks great!"  Well, I went to the backyard one afternoon last week and this is what I saw:

Something had completely destroyed the broccoli leaves and the little bit of lettuce that was left!  I immediately started searching online for what might eat broccoli in the city.  We've never seen rabbits and our yard is completely fenced in, so the only thing I can figure is that the culprits were either squirrels or chipmunks- that's what we've seen a lot of in our yard.  Then of course I called my dad, to see if there was any hope for our broccoli without its leaves.  He recommended that we start over with summer veggies, since rodents aren't supposed to like the leaves of those as much.  So now I've planted tomatoes, bell pepper, squash, and zucchini.  I read online that hanging CD's in the garden will discourage squirrels because they'll run away when they see their reflections.  So far, so good; I'm just holding my breath and hoping we get SOME vegetables out of this.  Anyone have ideas of how to keep away pesky varmints? ;)

We have really enjoyed watching the dogwood trees begin blooming, and we have TONS of violets popping up all over our yard!

Happy Spring!

New wreath

It was time to update the front door wreath for spring, and this week was perfect since flower stems were 50% off at Hobby Lobby.  I used a 40% coupon for the vine wreath, and I already had the ribbon on hand.  The total cost was around $7!

First, I wound the ribbon around the wreath.  Then, I cut the flower stems into smaller pieces that I kind of randomly wove under and over the ribbon and parts of the vine.  Of course I used my trusty hot glue gun to tack some of the pieces in place.

Ta da!  

Maybe next time I make a wreath, our front door will be red. :)

March

As we were anxiously awaiting the spring weather, in March we...

1. went to a Josh Turner concert at the Peace Center with our friends Bonnie & William

Great show at an excellent venue!

2. went to Clinton to cheer on Blue Hose tennis and visit Team Herendeen (Adam & Erin)

3. visited York- we had a great time visiting family and seeing the peach trees beginning to bloom

4. had Rob's parents to our house for Easter weekend.  

We played some corn hole in the backyard, went downtown to one of our favorite places to eat, The Velo Fellow, and enjoyed the nice weather by walking around Falls Park.  We went to church and then came back to the house to eat way too much- I even pulled out the fine china!  Grandmothers would be proud. :)  I made Pioneer Woman's strawberry shortcake cake which was a big hit.  Having Bush-N-Vine strawberries to make it also helped!

Yard Obsession

Here are a few things we've been doing to get ready for Spring!

1. Built a birdfeeder (Rob taught me how to use his mitre saw- but he did most of this). :)

 Rob made this sign for our garden for Valentine's Day.

 Thanks to my dad and brother, Samuel, we added some good ole rotting leaves mulch from York County. :)

 We planted some red leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, and broccoli.

 Some daffodils actually bloomed this Spring...can't wait to see more next year!

 mulch for the herbs

The beginnings of our herb garden (cilantro, parsley, rosemary, mint so far).

Can you tell I've been a little obsessed with the yard lately?! ;)

Birthdays and Yard work

February began with several birthdays, which we celebrated over a week...in Greenville and in York.  Rob turned 26 on the 1st, Samuel turned 25 on the 6th and we helped Mawmaw celebrate her 90th birthday on the 8th!

 Rob's birthday pies

                    Mawmaw reading to her great-granddaughter

We've also had fun cleaning up our backyard.  Rob got a hatchet for his birthday, and started out one Saturday trying to use it to cut down the fig tree that had overtaken our backyard.  He ended up using a saw to cut down the tree to the stumps, and we hauled the branches up to the street where they were an eyesore to our neighborhood for a week until they were picked up.  Our backyard looks a lot more open now!

My parents sent us back from York last weekend with lots of daffodils and irises to plant around our yard.  We're excited about our cleared backyard, and we're planning a summer garden.  We'll see if I have any sort of green thumb like my dad.  

One man's trash...

You know the saying "One man's trash is another man's treasure"?  Well, a few months ago, Rob and I were driving back to our house on the night before trash day and we noticed a large rocking chair on the side of the road.  Yes, we pulled over in the median, and loaded the chair in the back of Rob's car.  When we got it back to the house we realized why it was on the side of the road- one of the rockers was broken and there was a split in the seat of the chair.

Rob did some work on the chair and completely remade the broken rocker and secured the seat.  Now it just needs some paint. :)

New wreath for the new year

Rob gets nervous when I have an extended amount of time off work because I tend to raid Hobby Lobby, thrift stores, Target, etc. in the pursuit of new craft ideas.  Well, my latest project was super cheap and fairly easy to make- it was just time-consuming and required lots of hot glue.  I didn't take pictures of the steps along the way because I was afraid it wouldn't turn out like I wanted, so here is a picture of the final product:

If you'd like to make your own you will need:

-hot glue gun

-burlap (I used two different colors)

-card stock or construction paper

-grapevine wreath

-decorative silver berry things (no idea what these are really called)

All of these items can be bought at Hobby Lobby, but check your local thrift store for a grapevine wreath first- I bought mine for $1!  I used my friend's tutorial on how to make burlap rosettes.  (Thanks, Anna!  It worked really well!) I made several rosettes- hot gluing as I circled the burlap around the knot.  Then I glued the rosettes on the wreath after I cut the extra card stock from around them.  Next I just stuck the "silver berry things" into the wreath so that they slid behind the rosettes. I didn't glue them in so that I could switch them out when the seasons change.  I bought the silver berries at Hobby Lobby in the Christmas section after Christmas so they were 66% off, so I think I bought four bunches of them for a total of $1.50.  So there is the finished wreath!  Next project...painting the front door red. :)