Hit there! Happy Sunday! Is the sun shining where you are? Here, too!
We have the grandies for the day today, so we’re trying to come up with all sorts of ideas to keep them busy. Luckily, the weather is lovely and they can ride bikes or pull wagons… make it a play outside day.
While out there, I’m going to see if I can get my windows and deck clean for spring. Why not, eh? It is a bit early, hubs will tell me I am crazy. He is probably right, but I am starting to get into spring cleaning mode. If I can keep the kids busy at the same time, it is a win for us all.
The kids love mucking about with water, and using my Swopt squeegee. So do I though ; ) Who doesn’t love playing with water, especially when it is for a purpose, right?
We have the landscaper coming over to scope out the front yard and give us a quote tomorrow. I am so excited to get this going! This year’s job is teeny compared to last year’s backyard renovation. We live on a pie shaped lot so have a very small front yard.
The budget for our front yard makeover is also small ; ) We could do it ourselves but it would take two to three weeks. If we get Evergreen Yard and Landscaping Solutions to do it for us, it will take a day or two at most, so I can get in there and do some planting and direct sowing early in the season. More on the makeover in a few weeks, as the ground thaws and the job gets underway.
Gardening Bits & Ideas
This week’s Sunday bits is full of fantastic landscaping and eco-friendly ideas!
The Bucket of Doom! Get rid of mosquitoes in the yard. You guys, this looks like it might be the answer! No harmful sprays or pesticides that harm any other creatures in your garden.
Check out this lush, amazing city garden.
What to Know About Adding a Beautiful, Suitable Path to Your Yard – love all of these ideas, but the poured in concrete is my favourite, I think.
Here are some tips and ideas for lighting up your pathways and yards.
How to divide perennials. It is usually preferable to divide them in autumn, but needs must, so sometimes we do it in spring instead.
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From Martha… 25 Flower Bed Ideas.
These are fantastic. Gosh, I sure love looking at gardens and pretty yards.
Charming Garden Potting Sheds: Sunday Strolls + Scrolls – The Inspired Room – Check out these lovely garden cottages for more inspiration.
How to grow snapdragons from seed… pre-start or direct sow.
This amazing, gorgeous, lush, insanely beautiful garden.
Eco-Warrior Ideas
I am forever looking for the best way to live, garden, and grow food in an urban landscape while feeding the bees, attracting songbirds to the yard – keeping the yard safe for kids, dogs, and all creatures big and small.
- I don’t worry about small holes in my leaves, on my veggies or roses.
- I don’t worry about thrips, instead I deadhead the flowers, knowing the next flush of blooms will be just fine.
- I water as seldom as possible, but deeply, knowing that my veggies will taste better and I save water (and my water bill).
- I don’t fertilise the gardens, instead I feed the soil to feed the plants.
- I don’t use any pesticides, even ‘organic’ ones, knowing that if I spray even once, I am also killing off the eggs or larvae of beneficial insects that have arrived to take care of the pests for me.
- I plant local plants (not necessarily native, but local to the area) that my local bugs and birds will prefer.
- I grow simple flowers, knowing the the open faced ones are preferred by the bees and hummingbirds.
- I grow a wide variety of flowering trees and shrubs to feed the birds, bees, and beneficials.
- I leave the leaves.. except on my lawn. Those go on top of my garden beds.
- I use smelly flowers to repel pests from my garden.
I do all these things, and more, to be as green, organic, eco-friendly, as possible. Yet I always want to learn more, do more, make my yard, my neighbourhood, and my planet a better place.
These 10 easy ideas to be a greener gardener.
Why you should embrace untidy edges.
I thought this study was fantastic. I love echinacea, but I think most of us have bought some of the newfangled ones, only to have them die after the first winter. This article gives us the names of coneflowers that last five plus years and are as attractive to pollinators as the native ones.
These 56 plants that bees love.
Embrace lazy gardening for sustainability.
The two photos of the coneflowers/echinacea in my long front privacy border garden, were taken at the end of the summer in 2021. This was the summer of the heat dome and several terrible heat waves in British Columbia. I was living on the west coast at the time, on Vancouver Island. We were saving on water, could not water our gardens, so only the tough survived. While the flowers look a little bit crispy, they made it through just fine.
Not sure why I put this picture of a large dark red nasty here, but am going to leave it up. Makes me happy : )
Homey Bits & Ideas
How To Make Spring Flower Arrangements
These blue front doors. I love that first one the best. Think I will do something like this to makeover my front door this year. It is currently a bit too bold for my liking.
Recipe Bits & Inspiration!
It is my turn to host the neighbourhood coffee klatch this week, so I have been trying to come up with all sorts of lovely spring like ideas to make. These are things that caught my eye.
Bursting Blueberry Layer Cake. Lemon and blueberries
Rhubarb pavlova. I have always wanted to make one of these, but always been intimidated by them. Maybe this is the one to start with?
From Martha… banana cream pie. Yum!
This salad is so good that hubby eats it several times a week. We pickle any kind of onion that we happen to have on hand, and usually use this mild vinegar (you can find it at the Superstore), though have also made it with apple cider vinegar, or even white vinegar.
A collection of the best tofu recipes. I liked so many of these that I decided I would share the whole thing rather than trying to pick and choose one or two recipes to share with you all. The first one sounds a lot like the crispy tofu bowl at Cactus Club Cafe, except made with noodles instead of rice.
Some of the seeds that I direct sowed in the greenhouse this past week. You can also start them inside, if you have more room than I do.
The Marigold Potager - A Zone 3 Prairie Garden 
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