It’s almost safe planting time in the northeast and Chris and I spent the weekend getting ready.
I have pretty big plans this spring, since I feel like this is a house that we’ll stay in for a few years. I ordered berries and rhubarb from our county extension office last month. Ten Strawberry plants, 5 raspberry, 2 blackberry, 2 blueberry and 2 rhubarb, so I spent last weekend trying to figure out where to plant them all. 
[JPG]Everything except for the raspberries I’m going to put around the southern edge of our house. The raspberry bushes I still haven’t decided on.
Also, we built two 8’x4′ raised beds and filled them with top soil for herb gardening and maybe a few tomatoes and peppers. Unfortunately our yard is really rocky and doesn’t have a lot of good soil from all the construction, so the raised beds are pretty necessary. We’re going smaller on the major garden vegetables this year because I don’t know how up to it I’ll be by July. But, we joined a CSA again ; a farm in New Paltz that also sells eggs and free-range meats, so we’ll have plenty of fresh local vegetables all summer despite me not planning to grow any.
A week ago last Monday I had the day off and it was really nice out so I did a bunch of gardening then, too. I moved some bulb
[JPG]s which were in an odd spot in the yard to around the mailbox (hyacinth, tulips, and daffodils) and then put a rock border around it and some mulch. So far they look like they’re taking okay; the hyacinth started blooming yesterday. I think maybe Marc’s grandparents had a flower bed in that spot in the yard, because there were a lot of bulbs and a rosebush, which I also moved. Of course, I found some poison ivy, which never fails – every spring!
I ordered organic heirloom herb seeds from the Seed Saver’s Exchange in Iowa and they should be here soon so I can start planting in the beds. Chris is going to pick up the berries from the extension office on Thursday, so planting them will be this weekend’s project. I also want to do some flower/bush planting toward the end of May in the front of our house, but I’ll plan that later.
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