Mother's Day

I felt like we had a long Mother's Day weekend, instead of just a day. Kolby took Friday off so he and I could hang out since work has calmed down a bit. We spent a few hours in the morning hiking up to Rattlesnake Ridge, which had a fantastic view and terrifying drop-offs from the top.

Saturday night we had some old friends, Nancy and Alex, over for dinner. It was a gorgeous day, so we sat out on the deck and soaked up the nice weather for as long as possible. The kids had a birthday party for our cats who are now a year old! Our little babies all grows up!

And Sunday I woke up to beautiful artwork from the girls, my newspaper, a delicious cup of coffee, and Kolby's company while he made breakfast for me. I wish I'd taken a photo. It was gorgeous. Eggs benedict and homemade hashbrowns with onions and peppers. Mmm. I think I just gained another 5 pounds just writing about it.

Usually I buy all of my flowers and plant them in my flower pots on Mother's Day. I decided since the farmer's markets opened this weekend, I'd rather get my veggie garden started. So we headed over to Seattle to the farmer's market on Capitol Hill and bought all the veggie plants, then stopped at Lowe's on the way home to pick up all the supplies to build the bed, and then one more stop at the "feed store" to pick up compost, etc. By 6:00, we were good to go.

I'm trying out square foot gardening this year. If you are experienced with vegetable gardening, tell me now if I've put things in the wrong place! I still have a few empty squares--I'm thinking I'll plant some stinky marigolds to scare off pests.

If you care, I think what I have planted:

• Back row: peas, tomatoes (big beef and yellow pear), lemon cucumber, regular cucumber, 2 bush beans and 2 pole beans, Ace red pepper, and more peas. I need to get a trellis up this weekend for all of this stuff to climb.
• Middle: red oak lettuce, empty square, arugala, sweet basil, purple basil, rosemary
• Front: walla walla onions, green leaf lettuce, empty square, a couple more types of lettuce I've forgotten, green onions, and cilantro and parsley.

This weekend, in addition to building the trellis, I'm going to ammend the soil in an existing bed and plant some zucchini and artichokes. I also need to get some copper tape to go around the edge to keep the slugs out, and figure out some kind of barrier to keep the bunnies, kitties, squirrels, and dogs out of the bed. Any ideas?