I Love Lamp: The Garden Comes Together

About a month ago, Steven spear headed a garden revival effort and painted those old fence posts grey to get us going. We had to wait a few days until our deer wire arrived and then we had to wait til the inspiration to actually install said deer wire struck.

That came about a week later, just as the daffodils were blooming. We realized we had to get in there right then, otherwise everything would start to grow up around the fence and we'd be screwed til next spring.

The installation was tedious but simple. We unrolled the deer wire a few feet at a time, hand raking out the dead leaves that had collected and pushing aside what was already starting to grow. Steven pulled the fence taught while I hammered in the little U shaped nails, about three to a post.

There were a few spots where the dirt was high and so Steven dug it out.

He was also a real trooper about being the one get all up in the prickly stuff.

Though it was my job to get into the tight spots.

If I remember correctly, the whole thing took about two and half hours. At which point Steven decided he was gonna finish it right and make us a little barn wood door.

And tada! A fully enclosed garden once again!

Experienced garden folks might be looking at this saying, "That's not nearly high enough to deter deer!" or " They didn't dig nearly deep enough to deter bunnies and groundhogs and all those other pests!" to which I say it's really more of a "Keep Waldo In" fence than a reeeeal "Garden Fence" and for that it works perfectly.

I wish I had a photo of Waldo laying in the garden, content in the sun, but at the moment I don't, so you'll just have to trust that that's how it happens over here now!

Though it wasn't like we were finished once we did the fence. It turns out there's the whole gardening aspect of gardening. (Who knew?!) And while we'd bought a handful of herbs the other week, they were sadly wilting away in our kitchen, waiting to be planted, and the weeds were overtaking the garden, gravel included. Cuz we've been busy! Which is great. You love a full house at a hotel. But it was getting borderline embarrassing... 

Which is why we were so lucky that when Steven's folks visited this weekend, they decided it would be good fun to help us out in that department!

They weeded and pruned and trimmed and weeded some more, then planted and watered our sad little herbs which will hopefully pull through.

Then weeded and pruned and trimmed and weeded even MORE... til it finally looked like a garden again!

They even prepped another raised bed for more veggies and herbs which we're gonna get from our local nursery hopefully this week.

And all just in time as things are really starting to finally bloom around here. And not just the chives that have gone to seed--

Bu the peonies too as of just this morning!

Aaaaand these other flowers... whose names I totally don't know.

So thank you Kathie and David! It feels so great to have this little garden wonderland back!

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)