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Two activities that have kept us busy are taking care of the pool and planting the garden.  Back at the start of May, when we pulled back the cover and took a peek at the pool, it was pretty green.  Luckily Brian had scheduled “Pool School” at the advice of friends in Pelham.  Between their initial visit and regular trips to the local supply shop, we’ve gone from this:

First vacuuming of the pool

to this:

Clean pool ready for Memorial Day

In the mean time, the garden has been planted with pepper and tomato starts, lettuce, beets, carrots, swiss chard, kale, radishes, parsley, basil, onions, chives, and green beans.  We watered the first few days, then it’s been raining almost every day since!  We chalk this up to Brian emulating Grandpa Krueger, who notoriously planted beans just before the rainiest week of the spring, ensuring they would be flooded out.  It’s not quite so bad since we have raised beds that drain well, but it has caused us to chuckle each day as we look at the forecast for rain and scattered showers – again.

The first plants to burst forth were the radishes, with their little heart-shaped leaves and red stems.

Radishes are up!

And after about a week, the beans were looking good too.

Green Beans looking strong

Once all the plantings were up, Brian drove in some 2x4s as posts and we put up wildlife netting to deter our woodland friends from feasting on the tasty bounty.  It won’t be strong enough to keep a determined deer from busting through, but it should keep the bunnies at bay.  Brian thought we should give the birds some warning by putting ribbons on the fencing, so they will hopefully avoid flying into it.

Wildlife fencing with ribbons

Here you can see the radishes right in front of me, the peppers in the back bed, and the tomatoes in the next bed over.  We check on our garden every morning, and soon we will need to thin some of the rows.  We are looking forward to many tasty meals from our fresh veggies this summer!