Spring To Do List

There's always so much to do in the spring that it's easy to just move along doing "stuff" without setting any real goals. Two years ago when I was laid off, I learned that I needed to set real goals to keep moving forward and so that I could accomplish something - even if I did not have a real job. I found that I liked having the list and taking the opportunity each day to look at the list and decide what to work on next. At the end of the day it was lovely to cross something off the list. So here is the spring list for 2010:

1. Renovate the bed around the oak tree. Actually, there is no oak tree. It died last year and we cut it down. Sadly, we killed the oak when we moved into this house. They put the driveway right over half of its root area and therefore deprived it of water. It was fine for a couple of years, but over the past five years struggled and finally we had to have it taken down. Now, what used to be a shady area is a sunny area. It needs additional shrubs and a general re-working of the plants.

2. Remove the sweetspire and renovate that part of the back garden. Sweetspire is a lovely three season shrub that we had in a very shady spot at our "old" house. When we moved here I knew it needed more light, so put it in full sun where it went wild. It became aggressive and was taking over the hibiscus bed. Last fall we decided it had to go, so I used a generous amount of Round-up to start killing it. Now I need to clear out the space and find something to put there.

3. Fix up the entry to the garden shed. It's difficult to get the mover and other big tools out of the shed. I need to take out the grass and put in some kind of pavers to make it easier.

4. Revitalize the veggie garden. Mitchell built a wonderful pair of boxes for square-foot gardening two years ago. He really enjoyed them the first year, but lost interest last year. I really enjoyed the fresh food, so want to grow some more things this year, but it needs more soil and a plan.

In addition to the cleaning that still needs to be done, this list should keep me busy for a good while.