Makeshift Story: Dirt and Bones

The beautiful, tiny salamander who lives in our yard

This weekend can mostly be summed up by two main events: putting in our garden, and getting a member's-only sneak peak at the new Discovery Centre temporary exhibit. Both were very satisfying.

Check out those gardening poses! Professionals!

First: the garden. We have tried our hand at gardening pretty much everywhere we've lived, with varying degrees of success. Our biggest garden, for instance, was in Wood's Hole. It actually grew quite well, and yielded loads of great-looking produce: peas, greens, beets, cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes... and then it was just completed decimated. " Deer?", you ask? "Groundhogs?" "Or perhaps it was all those bunnies that lived in your yard?" No, my friends - it was the fiendish voles. They just ate EVERYTHING. It soured me for a few years, especially since it was (like so many other things in our lives at that point) difficult to muster the drive to put large amounts of time and effort into things we knew we would just be leaving behind.

Securing the fourth and final raised bed

This year, however, I have been all over the yard work. It is a slow process, making our yard our own, but it is actually really quite fun and gratifying. Also, the kids are both super enthusiastic about the process as well, which makes it even better. After seeing my two raised beds, for instance, they both requested their own, smaller versions. We didn't have any cedar left, but pine should at least last a couple of years, right?

Linden's raised bed choice: carrots

I assumed Juniper would plant flowers, but she opted for cucumbers instead

Here is a view of the end result (minus the kids' boxes, which are just off to the left). Two brand new composter bins, two mounds (Linden and I scavenged rocks from around the yard for demarcation purposes), and my raised beds. Oh, and a patch of raspberries, which are remnants of the old garden that was here (I spent an entire week in the fall just pulling out raspberries from the rest of the garden). So far, we have planted: kale, lettuce, beets, pumpkin, zucchini, peas, beans, various herbs, and, of course the carrots and cucumbers. There are some tomatoes and basil that will get transplanted a bit later on, but otherwise we really finished things up nicely!

Ta-da!

The one thing we have left to figure out is what to do about the surrounding dirt. I would think about laying sod or grass seed, but the problem is that there is pretty poor drainage back there, and the dirt is very clay-like. This means that it turns into a veritable mud pit any time it rains. So... I'm pretty sure we would be fighting a losing battle trying to make grass grow. Gravel seems like a big pain in the butt if we ever want to change things around. Mulch would, I think, just become mud-mulch, and planks of wood don't seen too appealing either. I'm open to suggestions!

Pretty proud of their work! (Clark waters the newly planted beds in the background)

And finally, the Discovery Centre exhibit. I didn't actually take many pictures, as the exhibit was very crowded and dark, but - wait for it - it was entirely devoted to DINOSAURS! This was big news for us, as the dinosaur room at the Museum of Nature was a family favourite back when we lived in Ottawa. Sadly, this one is just temporary, but I anticipate visiting it pretty often while it's here. It was very well done!