This year, the perennial garden has done better than I expected! Last year was the first year for everything to bloom at our new house. I was able to work with Gilmour last year with their gardening supplies, and when I reached out to them again this spring, they jumped on board ready to work with me again, and sent me some Fiskars tools as well! Love that since I already have some of both in my lawn & garden arsenal! And for the record in my opinion, the only good garden tool is a dirty one!
Now, last year when I worked with them, a couple of the houses around us still weren't built yet, and our home hadn't been added to Google Maps. I had wanted to use
Gilmour's mapping guide to get an idea of the length of hoses we would need, but I couldn't figure out the boundary lines. Well, have no fear, I was able to figure it out this year with the updated map.
I absolutely love their site. I easily get lost in their
Tips & Techniques. I love gardening, but getting a lawn started has been the bane of our existence since last year. Our builder only put sod just in front of the house. To the side and the entire backyard was only seed. The seed didn't stick the year we moved in, so last year Fred seeded again. So far all we have is clover coming out the wazoo!
Ignoring that, I've been having so much relaxing, enjoyable time in my perennial garden. It's really coming together. I need to map out my plants because there are several I can't remember what they are. I'll have to split my Iris this year. I've been moving tons of stuff around. It's been a super productive couple of weeks out front. Of course, since that's going so well, I'm eyeballing the rest of my yard coming up with ideas of lining the side of my house with perennials, too. HA! Why stop at the front?
At the beginning of March I started veggies inside. I'm still a complete novice at starting them myself. By mid-April, I realized things weren't looking as good as they should. I had a gazillion tomato plants started, but they looked terrible. My peppers didn't do anything, and my eggplants looked great, but something has been eating all of the leaves. I planted the tomatoes in the backyard garden, but the weekend before last, I had to take my new Fiskars tools and replant nearly every single one of them. Waaaaaah
The peas I planted were too close together, so I ended up moving one of those. My pumpkins were growing well...of course since I don't need THOSE until October. Only one zucchini made it from seed and the same with my squash and watermelon. Those I all sowed into the ground. I decided to try some inside to get started and transplant them if they grew. Well, grow they did, and I got those bad boys planted in the garden. I'm already behind with the corn. That's a direct sow as well, and guess who hasn't direct sown? I'm going to pull up a row of tomatoes and see if I can get the corn started.
For Christmas, we got mum & pap a planter box. With mum passing away, pap said he wasn't going to be using the planter and brought it down to us. I put it out front with my other planter box and stuck a few onions in it. I've never grown onions before, and I have no idea how they'll do in a planter box. lol Fred likes onions so I'm hoping it'll be successful. I started those inside when I did the second batch of seeds, and 3 came up. Who knew starting seeds would be so darn hard?
I don't know about you, but the right garden tools make life so much better! Check out the ones I had the opportunity to work with:
- Big Grip Transplanter
- Big Grip Trowel
- Big Grip Cultivator
- Big Grip Weeder
- Big Grip Garden Knife (multitool)
- Shear Ease® Grass Shears
- PowerGear2™ Hedge Shears
- PowerGear2™ Lopper
- PowerGear2™ Pruner
The transplanter has been super helpful with the replanting of my tomatoes. That was a task that took an a couple hours+. Blah, what a tedious task. The trowel has been wonderful with digging new holes for the plants I was shifting around in the garden. The cultivator has been great with the weeds in the garden. They are springing up fast furious with all of the rain we've had. The weeder may be my favorite tool this season. I've had a couple of serious weeds that required some sweat to get out. The stems were a beast to get to, but breaking up the dirt and wiggling it loose with the weeder made it so much easier! I had initially tried to use a trowel, but it wasn't getting me anywhere. Here's the horrible weed that refused to give up until I'd done my job!
I wasn't sure what I was going to use the grass shears for until my hubby went out for the second mowing of the season. Listen, I love the guy, but he gets too close to my garden with the mower for his own good. I took things into my own hands and use the grass shears to cut the grass closest to my flowers. Crisis averted!
Our backyard, by our shed has become the branch & twig collection area. When we have storms and branches fall from the trees, we just place them all next to or behind the shed. I miss having woods next to my house where I could just drag everything on a tarp. Now I have to discard them by taking them to the dump or putting them in the required lawn bags. Well, some of these limbs are too long or too big to put in the bag. Thanks to the lopper, cutting them down to size was like slicing through butter!
Well, my hubby went away for the weekend on a retreat, and I got my DIY on while he was gone. We grabbed a pallet from the hardware store to start with. I pulled out my pressure washer for the first time this season, and cleaned that nasty thing off. Then I laid out all of my tools to see how I wanted to have them all arranged. Thankfully the hubster had some hangers that I slightly modified to fit them. I ran to our local hardware store and grabbed a simple hose holder & plastic straps for the bigger tools, and a snap attachment for the extended wand. When Fred came home, he finished the frame for me!
I laid the pallet down and rearranged my tools numerous times to get it just how I wanted it. I put the hooks, straps, snap, and hose holder where I wanted them. I was going to attach a wire basket for the nozzle, but I couldn't find one anywhere. Thankfully one of the o-rings worked. When I attached the hooks I realized that my #10 screws weren't going to keep them up. Glad the hardware store is like a minute from my house. It's also a dangerous thing!
I had originally bought a more expensive hose holder, but I figured this plastic one would last longer than the other one, and I liked that if I needed to tuck something small in it, it's got the space. There's lots of space for me to add more tools. I think I might put some small plastic buckets in a couple of spots just to hold random things I might come across like my samples of fertilizer that just lay on the tool chest. Probably one to hold my seeds as well.
This will fit perfectly in the shed and since Fred made an angled frame it won't have to lay against the wall, which the shed company says shouldn't be done. The frame is narrow enough that it won't take up a lot of room, but angled enough so the tools won't fall off. I can also store my 5 gallon buckets behind it when they're not in use.
Now you have the opportunity to win this collection of tools from Gilmour:
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