Gardening is great for the aesthetics, soul, and waistline

Yesterday I finally got around to planting.  I had gotten the plants a week before, but just didn't feel like planting. I looked at the forecast and our schedule and realized I needed to do it now as the rains were coming and I would prefer the plants to get a good soaking in the ground than in their little pots. So, I set to work yesterday.

First, I had to weed. I barely had any weeds in the front garden, but had tons in the side and back gardens. After weeding everything, I started planting in the front yard, moved to do the two side yard flower beds, and finished in the two back yard flower beds. Near dusk I planted the 11 deck planters, the two raised herb planters and all the pots and baskets in the front yard (10 of them).  I finished the day by walking around collecting all the now empty plastic pots. That's all I had the energy or the time for yesterday. I was SPENT. I spent at least 7 hours on gardening and yard work yesterday and I felt great about it.


When I woke up today, I was so sore, but also the scale gave me a big present. I was down 1.4 pounds from yesterday. When I tabulated my food and exercise from yesterday, it predicted I lost half a pound with just gardening for exercise and that was way underestimating how much I did.

I have a couple appointments today, but between them, I did some minor gardening. Last year I got a toad house and made it into a gnome garden.  This year I found a second smaller house and expanded the gnome garden.  Last year on a huge clearance sale I got stuff to make a fairy garden, but never got around to it. I started on that today. It's going to be so cute! I am making one pot the fairy home, but then throughout the container garden on the deck I will make little vignettes in the plants showing other fairy hiding spots.  I can't wait to get it all set up!


So, the gardening was definitely good for the waist line!  But as I look around my yard, I realize it makes our home look better, and getting out and digging in the dirt is just good for the soul.  There is something deeply satisfying about gardening. I only wish I could grow food! Our 4 figs in enormous pots all died this winter as it got toooooo cold. Though, one of them has sprouted at the roots, so it didn't completely die, but it's starting over.  Also, of the things I planted yesterday, I planted perilla, which is great for salad, sushi, using like grape leaves too for things like dolmades. I am seriously hoping the rabbits, deer, and groundhogs have no interest in it!

And, while all the gardening and planting is not all done, here are several photos of the cute stuff - the gnome garden and the beginnings of the fairy sanctuary. First photo is the path leading from the driveway to our front door. My husband and I put that in two years ago. Last year I made a gnome garden. This is how it looked a few days ago before I added the second house and more little perennials around it. It gives you an idea of scale:

Now how it looks with more things added to it:

 

Then, the container garden will become the fairy sanctuary. I haven't gotten the plants into the pots or made the little vignettes yet, but I think it will be darling. Here's the start of it. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to put in the glass house. Right now I have some mini fountains and pots and a bench, but those will probably get spread around to other pots nearby for other "park like" spots for a fairy to visit. I like the start though!

And here is how it looks if you step back (without the plants in their pots yet):

And all the rest of the fairy stuff I have to put around yet! I am not loving all the different colors - black, white, sage, brown... I might spray paint it all one color so the look like they belong together as a group.

Crafts, gardening, and carb sensivity hodge podge

So, let's start with crafts. For Sunday as part of my job as Director of Ethical Education I do a service project with the kids for Mother's Day. This year's project was twofold, one was for Mother's Day, the other a start on the Father's Day project. I really only have 45-50 minutes with the kids, so that isn't enough time for them to cut apart egg cartons, paint, let them dry and then assemble, so I had to cut them apart (getting a blister in the process) and paint them. I then organized all the materials so that on Sunday the kids (ages ranging from 3 to 11) could assemble them. This took up a big chunk of Saturday, and any of the time I was going to devote to gardening. I was "gardening" in a different way!

This fit in perfectly with our curriculum on reusing/recycling/being good to the earth. All materials for the projects except for the ribbon were leftovers from other projects, and egg cartons, of course.

They turned out so cute and I think the kids had fun making them. We'll finish the Father's Day "owls" soon. (As always, you can click on a photo to make it larger).

 

Next, gardening. I need to do a lot of it and I "sort" of love it. I get a bit overwhelmed when I look at the big picture though. We inherited a mostly blank slate of a yard with the exception of some overgrown bushes.  Here are the masses of flowers and plants I need to get into the various spots in the yard:

My front yard is actually taking shape. We put in this stone path two years ago and a lot of the perennials have come back and are filling out a bit. And when I saw "we" put it in. We put it in. I dug up the sod with a manual sod cutter and then my husband and I laid the stones and then I planted.

Two of the three peonies in the front yard have gotten quite big and beautiful. For some reason, one, that I planted a year later than the rest isn't filling out - same with the ones I planted in the back yard too. All three "newly" planted ones have just 1 stalk. This one and another are only one year old, which is typical for a first year, but one is two years old and it's still like that. Weird.

I do have some naked spots though where the perennials didn't make it. AND I need to get the front step pots filled and organized and the area surrounding it weeded.

A problem area I have in the yard is this side yard. It is COVERED in sweet gum balls and it is either WET or DRY and doesn't get a lot of sun. So, I have tried planting several things back there now and nothing likes to grow there except the crepe myrtle and the Viburnum tree. I have ordered a few things to go there - some giant astible and red hydrangeas

 This side flower bed is a pain in the butt too. It is FREAKING HUGE and was a huge mulch pit with layers of that weed prevention cloth - FIVE layers. I took that out two years ago and 'some' areas have filled in, but others not. What grows really well there are thistles. I have TONS of thistles I need to dig up.  It's a combo area of shade and partial sun.

We also have a rock garden. And it gets SOOOOOOO weedy in the front with those false strawberries. Ugh! But the one peony is HUGE. It's almost up to my shoulder!

While in the back yard, we took out all that overgrown forsythia. That one patch is HUGE. The other got wide at the bottom of the property:

A big bummer was that ALLLLLLL the figs I had in ginormous pots died! The winter was just too harsh for them this year. Now I have to decide if I want to try again or just plant one in the yard - like back where that huge forsythia was.

And, our deck needs a lot of attention. I have a ton of pots on the deck, planters around the deck (10 of them) and then the raised planters to plant the herbs (out of rabbits reach).

Lastly, I have to plant a tree in the front yard. Hopefully third time is the charm. I first transplanted a tulip tree there and it took, but then I read that those were "discouraged" because they tend to splinter. So, I planted an ornamental I ordered, but it never took. This time I bought a native pink dogwood. Let's hope.

One of the 'fun' spots in my yard is the gnome garden. I am so happy to see the perennials I planted around it mostly came back (and are still filling in).

And lastly, carb sensitivity. This weekend, being it was Mother's Day, I treated myself to rhubarb pie and homemade ice cream. I had one slice and one scoop and it was GREAT.  However, because of that indulgence despite my caloric intake only being 1800 and I took over 10,000 steps yesterday, I gained 1.4 pounds. According to my gizmo (and calculators), I should have been at a huge deficit for the day, but those carbs? Nope... they make me hold water like crazy!  It's water weight and it will come off, but I think it shows how extremely sensitive I am to carbs if a single dessert on an otherwise spot on day can do that to me.

Phew... I think that's all in this very picture heavy post.  As you can see, my yard will keep me busy. We have 1/3 of an acre, but it sure does feel HUGE at times.

My weekend of gardening is about to commence!

Two years ago I used gardening as a big part of my exercise that spring and early summer. And it worked as I kept dropping weight and got stronger.  I hauled a HUGE amount of mulch - like it filled half my driveway it was so much mulch. We put down a stone path in our front yard and I built a new flower bed as well as added more perennials to 3 existing flower beds.

Last year I just tried to fill the holes of failed perennials and some light mulching and otherwise concentrated on my deck - prettying that up.

This year I will be doing the same, but with adding a few more perennials in other not very successful flower beds. So, it won't be weeks and weeks of puttering, but just a little bit.  Unfortunately, I'm starting the adventure with an already burned nose and back of neck and that was just from walking around the plant nursery for 2 days (burned both days). I burn as fast as most redheads - if not faster. Heck, my two red-headed boys don't burn as fast as either me or my black haired husband! So, I must wear my dorky hat and sunscreen. As much as sunscreen is needed, I hate it. I have oily skin, so adding cream or lotions to my face especially, NEVER feels good. I always feel like I can scrape the oil off my face with a spatula. Yuck. But, it's necessary as I've gotten some precancerous spots from too much sun exposure already (not melanoma).

As far as calories go, today will be a higher day, though within normal ranges. I had pancakes today for breakfast (almond and hazelnut flour replacing the wheat flour - super yummy - both my husband and older son prefer those) and some fresh fruit. Dinner will be salmon with a mango salsa - so more carbs than usually and a few more calories - more in line of 1400 calories for the day instead of 1150-1250. At least the carbs are from fruit, not grains.

Scale is still coming down. I lost another .5 today, so I'm at 228.4 (down from 241.6 April 1st). I think I'm beginning to see the difference in weight in my face now too. And BP was a perfect 117/78. Resting heart rate this morning was 52.

I'll show pictures of the garden progress as I finish up.

In other news, the baby house finches fledged yesterday afternoon. I think they might have been facing outward yesterday because they were ready to take off! That was a fun 13 days.  Here is there poor empty nest:

The end of winter doldrums

My life right now has a hodge podge of stuff going on. I'm trying to get my home organized (I'm failing at it horribly). I'm trying to job hunt (I feel like I spend a lot of hours on that for naught). And I'm trying to keep up with the exercise and the eating. And I just feel blah.

My eating was bad (carby and too much) the last several days. I don't know why. It happened to coincide with no exercise. No exercise tends to mean (for me) worse decision making as I feel in a rut. And, I feel hungrier. That one I don't quite understand, but it's been a constant.

So, no exercise, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Today I did two hours and guess what? I'm eating better. It's not a coincidence. But my head is still in a funk.

I think the cold and hanging on winter is beginning to get to me. Which also doesn't make sense as I'm an Iowa native and I have spent more years after that in cold regions too - so well over half my life and I'm getting sick of winter?

I see daffodils beginning to open, but my body says it's still winter and it's not happy with it.  I need to spend time outside in the sun. It's the lack of light. It's getting to me. It took until the end of March, but it finally took hold.

Today I let myself browse some gardening stuff. At some point the yard will be done, right? As I'm sure my husband and mother in law don't understand the need to get more stuff every year and digging up more and more of the yard, but it's this need I have. I don't even know why I need it. I just do.

Then I got in a funk because I would like to grow a lot of things and I can't because of critters. We have deer, rabbits, slugs, groundhogs, etc.

I planted a dozen knockout rose bushes last fall. Something ate them to the ground within a few days of me planting them. I see most of them survived the winter, but will they be eaten down again?

I would love to plant vegetables, but it's a lost cause unless I build a fortress around them and then the cost effectiveness is lost and my yard becomes the neighborhood eyesore.

Can you tell I'm in a funk? I just can't seem to shake it the last couple days and it's why I didn't write in the blog. I couldn't think of what to say because I feel so blah.

Good thing this feeling is fleeting and rare as it's just not nice.

Here's to hoping tomorrow is a better day all around.