Oh the weather this year in MN......   Has not been conductive for a gardener that plans to do major landscaping before planting!  We are approaching the last frost day here (May 25) with our landscaping/ creation of our garden still not done.  Ekk!  It just keeps raining.  I feel bad for our farmers, an consumers....food prices are going to go up as a result of late planting here in the Midwest.

We have managed to complete 1/2 of our garden, with a good start on the rest.  We just have brick laying to do and amending the soil.  No more removal of sod (at least in the front yard), yea!  We planted strawberries up our pathway.  We lucked out a neighbor had lots of extra strawberry plants ready to plant right when we were going to go buy some.  I have the best neighbors!   Since they are from someones garden will they produce this summer?  How cool would that be?  Since strawberries are one of the dirty dozen (most sprayed veggies and fruits) I can only get organic strawberries, but they are so expensive and I eat them like candy!  

We also dug out our existing front beds further and plan to edge with matching brick pavers and plant Perennial herbs in a decorative manner with catnip, chives, with annual swiss chard (multi colored) on the outside of the bed.  Hopefully it's pretty and tasty!

Here's What We Did Since Our Last Post

1. We used 4 bricks for the path in the middle, and 5 bricks for the path on the side due to the fact that our plot of land ended up being a bit odd shaped.  Last year we used only 2 bricks for our path.  What a bad idea!  I felt like I was walking on a tight rope every time I went into the garden.  Especially when all our plants were growing into the pathways.  It's amazing I never fell in our garden killing all our plants!  We used landscaping fabric under the bricks on the pathway to prevent weeds.
   
2. We used coarse sand to fill in between the cracks of the path way to prevent dirt ending up in the cracks and creating a good spot for weeds to grow, this has happened to us in the past.
3. Finally we added compost and peat moss and tilled and mixed in to amend our clay soil.  This is our first year adding peat moss.  I hope it helps.  It seems better already.  Healthy happy plants start with the soil.  Should be easier to weed to...

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