Three weeks to summer and it still feels like March

It’s been wicked chilly and wet around here. Yesterday I was considering the purchase of a nice rowboat. Or, perhaps a set of pontoons for the new wee garden shed. Because of said wetness & coolness all the garden is in delay mode. What would normally be done and gone is just now starting to bloom:

Obligatory annual shots of my tree peonies.

Ditto

And those things that should be in full bloom (rhondendrons) or feeding us (radishes & salad greens) are just starting to get their grow on. A very odd and loooonngggg spring. The tee tiny perennial geraniums are blooming though.

So twee and cute

So pretty and sweet. Now, come on sunshine!

The best offence is a good defence…

Right? Let’s hope so. What am I hoping to be offensive towards? Slugs & snails who keep chomping on my little seedlings. I don’t want to use any nasty chemicals like slug bait in the garden. I don’t want it anywhere near my food and I just know that special dog would eat it if she found it. Soooo, I had to find a better way of keeping my plants safe.

Turns out, slugs & snails do not like copper. Won’t cross it no matter how tasty the radish greens on the other side are. Thought about putting copper pipe along the tops of the raised flower beds but that would cost a fortune. Copper = wicked expensive. Who knew? Then I spotted this stuff at Lee Valley Tools. Genius! It’s basically a roll of the stuff they make copper scrubbers out of.

Added bonus, when you put it on the raised beds, it looks so pretty and sparkly. Like the beds are all wearing pretty jewellery. Yep, that was ridiculously girly.

Added, added bonus, I got to play with the industrial stapler. So fun!

Okay slugs & snails. Bring it on. I think I got you beat.

Keeping on with keeping on

Wee shed is coming along. Yesterday, a door was added:

And today some flashing and paint were added:

A little bit more finishing work, a ramp, and then a lick o’ paint on the inside and she’ll be rocking. It’s going to be a great place for all our gardeny type things. Tools, wheel barrow, lawnmower, etc. We’re also going to put our earthquake/emergency kit in it. ‘Cause let’s face it, in the event of a biggish earthquake, we’ll probably end up living in that shed for a while.

We also picked up our tomato, cucumber, and herb plants this afternoon. Not that it’s warm enough for the poor little things to be outside yet, but hope springs eternal. I have this sneaky feeling that it’s just all of a sudden going to get really, really hot and shock/kill/destroy/immolate all my little plants.

Here’s hoping the gardening gods are kind and don’t do any of those things to my little baby plants.

When your husband says he has plans for you for the weekend,

make sure you get details. If you don’t, you could end up doing something crazy over 8 hours on a Sunday.

Hmmmm, wood and landscape fabric...

More wood, odd.

More wood. Big flat stuff this time. I'm a heck of a stainer though, yeah?

There sure is a lot of wood happening.

Then, I got exhausted and forgot to take any photographs. Suffice it to say, I was given a cordless drill, three boxes of screws, cut lengths of wood, and some of that plywood I was staining earlier. I made walls and screwed down floors with help of yarnpiggy. When all was said and done, it looked like this, (note very happy man for scale):

Note the use of our old pickup canopy as roof? Reduce, reuse, recycle!

What's got two thumbs and a brand new shed? This guy!

Of course the wee dog had to leap into it and check it all out. It did survive it’s first rainstorm last night though.

Rainy day & wee shed.

That’s it tucked into the back of the garden. Oh, and we also almost doubled the size of the veggie garden by running it right to the back of the property. Gonna be a lot of veggies.

Next weekend, wee barn style doors and a ramp will be added. I’m also checking to see if he has any ‘other’ plans that I need to have him outline for me. ‘Cause my arms & legs are still sore from this 8 hour extravaganza. LOL