Good Morning Folks..

I hope you had a great weekend! We had good weather for the whole weekend, I mean it was spring, moving between to cool, cold with wind and then hot with sun..  Having said that.. we were above 6 and no rain/hail/snow and the winds never gusted more then 40 ish at the worst.

So as far as I am concerned.. the weather was GREAT!

Saturday morning I left a sleeping in hubby to head to the city as a friend of mine is moving and had a special discount “downsizing”  sale happening including some of her rewards as she sells Tupperware . * she is my main Tupperware gal.. We became friends before she started selling and she totally gets me.. I say.. I like this but not until its on sale and she knows I do not want a party 🙂

Anyway I had expressed a interest in the freezer system (I am trying to find a way to use less freezer bags, I already use the brown waxed freezer paper for all the meats. However its proving harder to find a way around plastic for the fruits and veggies.

Years ago I could use and wash and dry and reuse the good quality freezer bags but the last couple years they are making them with less quality and they often leak or split to the point you need to thaw them in a dish expecting them to leak and they certainly are not going to be used again.

So picked up full set and some extra’s to try out, I will test them hard and report back on it at a later point, I also picked up a few extra because they were amazing sales and I wanted try a few.. but 80% of what I got is all for freezer use

How are you working around plastic and freezer use? I know they are looking at a silicone bag that can be used in the freezer but so far I have only seen the stand up ones and they are costly yet and they would be very hard to stack in a good way in the freezer.

Then I got a real surprise and it awesome but I will get to that in its own post later this week 🙂 Did a bit of plant shopping and then stopped and had a visit with a friend of mine on the way home for a hour because I could and I adore them and don’t get to see them often enough!

After I got home, hubby and I got busy.. we worked for the whole afternoon on the kitchen garden area. First I finished up the new rock garden area. We had worked on moving the rocks and dirt and got the cedar pathway around it first.

Then we got the new spots all planted up with a mix of come again’s and annuals

Moving on to the Kitchen Garden Plot 1 with flowering lawn extender.. So Kitchen Garden Plot 1 is 32 feet long and six feet wide.. flowering lawn extender is 8 feet long and six feet wide.  Both of these plots have been raised and leveled with top soil.. around 30 plus wagon loads approx. to do so.

To the gravel walk way side we have added in Six fruiting bushes (honeyberry and blueberry) a mix of spring/summer/fall flowering plants.. one is edible, one is medical and one is just native bee plant.  I also have some lovely cosmo’s that will get planted on the closest to the walkway for this year in a off-set  planting in order to fill in that space this year as there is lots of room for plant growth and infill in the line.

The back side of the plot is a nice cedar path and this is a double bed, as I can reach three feet max from both pathways.  Into the first two rows went green onions and shallots, the rest of the garden plot will be planted this coming week.

Hubby asked me to leave a extra front plot area in case of backing up or turning of tractors or other things, he did not want the garden to run right to the drive way.. so we kept the garden plot 1 to come down and match the end of the raised strawberry bed.  We did the back fill and I have spread a flowering lawn mix. I have a lot of seed to use this year as I want to remove all the bare soil in the yard.. if I don’t plant it, nature will and I would like to nudge it in the direction I would like it to go 🙂

I am quite hopeful this will work, I made sure to dig out anything I did not want before top covering and leveling the area and then seeding it out.. I will be faithfully watering it and hope to have a crazy blooming pollinator feeding area there..

The end of that garden will go into large flowering plants and at the front of the garden is strawberries and wild violets..

Then on sunday, we switched gears.. as the bare root fruit order had come in and needed to be planted out.. which is just what we did..  A whole new short row in the front top fruit yard and back fill on the long rows and a one whole new row..  While I can fit one more smaller fruiting tree in and of course lots of smaller fruiting bushes.. and backfill on shrubs and so flowers BUT otherwise, this area is now full.. That only took many years, we planted our first fruit tree’s in that are a 15 spring ago.

I could not bend to help hubby but I could do other things and use the gripper to hold the little tree’s or bushes in plant for him.

After a break and some food, we started on the pond.. the first thing we needed to be done was rounding the slope sides.. and then we planted them with bushes and then seeded out but there are more plug coming as well as more natural backfill plants from the my yard and more local ditch ways over the growing season.

Got a few more plants done in the food forest and chores and then new ducklings hatched out and needed to be moved to their grow out pen. (more on them on their own post)

We were not able to get all the plug order planted so 16 plugs were potted up to hold them steady until we are able to get their area’s prepped and ready and then get them planted out. I could tell you that I slept well but in truth I had to wake up and stretch and walk and move a couple times during the night..

Totally worth it!