The dilemmas of a new homeowner

Being fairly new to this home, I welcome spring with mixed emotions. On the bright side (literally and figuratively) I LOVE the warmer weather, the sunshine, the longer days, and the ability to get outside without bundling. I love, love, love that! However, all of my neighbors seem to be able to get out more often and more easily than I. So as my kids nap (good thing, really) I watch the neighbors working on their lovely gardens and look at mine that are still full of last years dead stuff. I can use the "new baby" excuse for one more summer, right? I was psyched to get the kids outside this week, but quickly discovered that my baby (now just turned 1) doesn't like to be on the ground. She screams every time I put her down, which puts a HUGE damper on my efforts to work in the garden while the kids play. I guess for the next few weeks I'll be focusing on getting her to enjoy the great outdoors, putting the gardens and lawn aside.

All that said, I have ambitious plans for this season. I'm going to start a compost, grow (I hope!) a larger, more successful veggie garden, and attempt to remove the 4 dead/dying shrubs along the front of our house. I think some sort of flower garden will look better than dead shrubs :)

Did I mention that the morning glories we transplanted and the tomatoes we planted all died? It was sad. I used seedling trays (from Burpee, I think) that said they could be cut apart and planted right into the ground, saving you and the tiny seedlings from another transplant. What seemed to happen though, is that the trays sucked up all the water, leaving none for my plants. I watered them every day and within hours they looked dry as a desert again. It was sad. My toddler and I planted some green bean seeds this morning in little plastic kiddie cups. Hopefully they will work better. He was playing with the seed packets for the garden and excitedly decided that we needed to plant them -- NOW. So we did.