My Dirty Weekend

Well, here's what I've been up to the past few days: planting and more planting. Flowers, veggies and herbs. My yard is not very big, so I put some things like peppers and herbs in containers. I also planted tomatoes, green beans, Japanese eggplants, cucumbers, and zucchini squash.That's a dwarf apple tree in the planter on the right.




Here's Raven wondering how she's going to get past that fence surrounding the veggie garden:

Here's a little gardening tip I learned from my Dad: punch a hole in those little plastic markers that usually come with young plants and tie them to the tomato cages or stakes if you use them. So if you discover that you love (or hate) a particular variety, this will help to identify it easily.
This is a Rutgers tomato-their sports teams did well this year so I'm hoping their tomato will also have a good season as well!

Sorry these photos are kind of blurry-it's a little breezy here today.

So, why did I spend this long weekend getting dirty when I could have gone to the beach or a barbecue? Why it's a family tradition!
You see when I was a child, Memorial Day Weekend was when we would put our pool up. My father would carve out this huge circle which was the diameter of the pool in our backyard, and my brother, sisters, and I would spend the entire weekend "preparing the soil". We would dig up the whole area within that circle about 3 inches deep and sift every bit of it until there were no stones or grass or anything else left in it. Just good old dirt. We would have a pretty big hill of it by the time we were finished. My father would then spread this sifted dirt out into the circle. He would put a post in the ground at the exact center and using this as his guide, go around the circle with a large piece of wood until the entire area was level. Then we would put up the actual pool and fill it. If all had gone well, it would ready for our Memorial Day cookout.
On Labor Day Weekend, the pool would come down and we would repeat the entire process again the following year.

And as I recall, it was a fairly large pool.
I can still see my brother, shirtless and brown, covered with dirt, as he sifted the hours away. I think he rather enjoyed it.
A co-worker of mine thinks this story is hilarious and makes me repeat it to him every year for Memorial Day.
Fortunately, he was on vacation last week, but I'm sure I'll have to tell it to him tomorrow. Or maybe I'll just direct him to my blog.

Anyway, I have dirt up my nose and just about everywhere else on my person that isn't covered. I even taste dirt! It's time for me to hit the shower.

Gee, if I only had a pool.