How cold has our summer been? I'll show you!

This is last year's garden...

 

Just needed to unplug for a while...

Too many things were getting me down.  I am struggling with some depression and needed to withdrawl from the outside world for a while.  Staying close to dogs and hubby, I started getting the camera out and taking some pictures.  I almost forgot how much fun that can be, even when they are not all about
the dogs!  ☺

This is Lake Michigan of the Great Lakes around Michigan and parts of it are still frozen.  It was chilly out that way and you could feel the dampness in the air.  Still beautiful though.  We have seen some of the best sunsets on this lake though Lake Superior (another one of the Great Lakes) has some great ones as well.

We still have small mounds of snow that we are waiting to melt.  This spring has been one of the slowest to warm up and one of the coldest.  We are still gathering wood for our wood furnace to keep warm at night as it gets below freezing.

About 12 days old

My seedlings for my garden are coming along nicely.  I have tomatoes, cucumbers, green and hot peppers, lima beans (which I'm having no luck with) and pumpkins.  I'll be adding a handful of other seeds that I will sow directly into the garden like cabbage, carrots, radishes, green beans and corn.  It is always a race with out short season to try to get the most out of it.

And here they are now at a month old!

And we can't have a post without at least one dog pic...Check Brut out!!

 What a stud!

Brut is styling his own, one-of-a-kind punked out look, making the most of his winter to spring swing.  I have a special shot of Brut's new look that I'm saving for tomorrow's Wordless Wednesday.  Make sure you come back to check it out!

That's all for now at the house of the 24 Paws of Love.

Happy Tuesday to everyone!  ☺

Garden Goodies

So far all we've gotten is cucumbers.

 The dogs don't mind a bit!

To all my gardening friends, Happy Gardening!

What are some of your other interest?

Since I'm dealing with a bit of writer's block, I thought I would try something creative and veer off the topic of dogs for a while and into gardening.  My second favorite thing next to dogs.

I usually just concentrate on veggies, I don't mess around with flowers except I like to plant sunflowers all around the front of the house.  So I will start veggie seeds indoor this week, as we usually aren't able to plant until the first of June (hopefully) and with the short growing season of about two and half months those seedlings need all the help they can get.

I like to keep things easy and affordable or it's no fun.  I don't like to fuss over the garden.  Like compost, I used what's on hand:  leaves, ashes from wood, straw and duck poop.  So even Luigi does his part!  Duck manure is considered a hot manure and needs sit for a year before being ready to use.  So I have a small compost pile that I rotate from spring to spring

The main veggies I plant are:   tomatoes, cucumbers, green and hot peppers, onions and carrots. Each year I try to plant something new and different I haven't planted before or try another veggie again that didn't succeed very well.  Last year I tried broccoli, which turned out great and I'd like to do again. The dogs loved it!   This year I'm going to try again at growing lima beans.  I had some luck with them last year, but I started my seeds too late to get a good amount.

I only have so much room as my garden is small raised structure that hubby built where it has the best possible sun, considering the amount of trees we are surrounded by.

I use a method called "companion gardening," an age old method of growing certain plants together to benefit each other.  It helps in warding off insects, disease and helps each plant grow.  Two things I've learned:  put radishes in your cucumber hills and you'll rid yourself of the cucumber beetle.  (May work for squash as well) and that peppers grow great next to broccoli.  The cucumber beetle was actually sucking the life out of my newly planted cucumbers because I'd been lazy about planting the radishes in them.  When I finally did my cucumbers came back to life in a jiffy.  And I'd heard conflicting results about putting broccoli next to green peppers, but my green peppers flourished next to them and were some of the biggest and best I've ever grown.

I love gardening.  I am always amazed by the miracle of the seed and the power each hold within them, that with just the right conditions becomes the impossible.  It still boggles my mind.  There's nothing like just connecting with the Earth.  And no better excuse to play in the dirt!  And of course the dogs love eating out of it just as much as we do!

So what are some of your other interest?