a nice, warm Mother's Day

It is not easy to gain momentum -- to go from 0 to 60 after a week of nothing -- but we did manage to get a few things done in the yard.  The one task done, from start to finish, was planting the Topsy Turvy containers.  Of course I couldn't do it as instructed, I had to make it more complicated -- though it looked like everyone else's in the end.

I found the TT a bit difficult to wrangle so I devised a way to hold the planter up, but not so far up that the kids and I couldn't get the soil in easy using string.  I found the hardest part of the whole exercise was getting the plants and the sponge into the planter without harming the plant -- but once that was done, it was all downhill.

I got a lot of help from the bigger kids.  They filled buckets with potting soil and brought them to the deck for me. 

I added some extra vermiculite to the potting mix -- worried that they might dryout too fast in the summer.

The instructions said to stop adding soil 2 inches from the top -- so I stopped at 4 and added some compost.

Then I put in a 'water spreader.' 

I thought that the water would drain slower with such a device (though that didn't seem to happen.)  Maybe it will still serve to disperse the water more evenly throughout the bag.  I am not sure at this point that it was worth the effort -- but I did it with some friend's milk jugs, a power drill, and a pair of scissors.  A fun and easy project.

And while this was the only completed project this weekend -- we got a lot farther on several more.  I did some necessary shopping for supplies, my husband got the kiwi trellises into the ground, and we got started on melon trellises and some of our watering systems.  Overall, a very productive weekend.