Delays, Spring Fever, and Moving at Last

After endless delays that have kept us in our old home for two agonizingly long months, we finally have our closing date! On Thursday, our new old home will officially be ours, and just in the knick of time.

This weekend will be spent building garden beds, because I need to get my veggies in he ground as soon as possible. Our last frost date was last week, and with the beautiful weather we're having, it feels like we're getting a terribly late start.

I've finally decided on a design for my raised beds.

This is something I've agonized over and experimented with and researched until my head spun. I want to steer clear of treated wood because of the chemicals used to make them rot-resistant. I've tried non-treated lumber only to find myself rebuilding beds every couple years. I ruled out cedar and paver stones because of the cost.

Then I stumbled upon a garden blog with photographs of a raised bed design I'd never even thought of - cinder blocks. Less expensive than decorative block and more durable than any wood, it is the perfect solution! I plan to use 12" x 6" block and use the holes in the blocks to plant herbs and ornamental companions like marigolds to form an attractive border around the main vegetable beds.

So on Friday, I'm off to the local lumber yard to buy a hundred or so cinder blocks to get a start on my first section of garden in the new yard, a 9' by 34' area outsid my kitchen window that is just begging to become a kitchen garden. Two 3' wide beds will run the length of the space with a path between them, ending at a strawberry tower at the fence. At the entrance to the space will be raspberry plants trained upright on a system of 4' x 4's and galvanized wire.

Now all that is left is to build an attractive, inexpensive gate for the area, to keep my over-eager Lab puppies from digging up my precious plants.

Spring Fever

This is, I think, the toughest time to live in Michigan. At the very least it is the toughest time to be a gardener in Michigan. One day it is 70 degrees and sunny; the next we're back to sub-freezing lows. The beautiful days we've had lately have me chomping at the bit to get everything in order so I can get a quick start on planting, but with more than two months left before our last frost date, there's really no rush.

That doesn't make the wait any easier. Every year around this time, a vague and nagging restlessness sets in, making it hard to focus on the mundane tasks at hand, calling me to dive into new projects and passions. But this year I have to resist, at least for now.

We're still waiting to find out if we got the house, with attractive new prospects on the horizon and a clear fork in the road rapidly approaching. If tomorrow brings news that they have again rejected our offer, do we come back with a better offer or do we sit tight? There is an auction just a little more than a week away that holds some promise, with 4 properties we liked going up for sale with very low starting bids and an expectation that they'll sell for a price we can afford. Two of the four have acreage, but none have the emotional appeal of the house we're currently in negotiations over.

I just wish the whole process was over. I'm getting so frustrated with not knowing! I just want to know which house we are going to buy so that I can start moving forward, past living in a half-packed house playing the waiting game and on to shaping our new home into my family's dream.