Landscaping

In the fall, we stole a bunch of unwanted plants from my parents (and they were generous to give us some nice, larger ones). We planted them and anxiously waited for them to pop back up this spring. And they have! (Pardon the weeds - I'm slowly annihilating them.)

Also, two mystery plants from the last owners popped up! Any ideas what they could be?

Also, we have a veggie patch in the back. I started collard greens, spinach, green onions, tomatoes, and kale from seed during late winter. We've also added asparagus and strawberry plants. I'm currently waiting for string beans, mesclun lettuce, and cucumber seeds to sprout. 

I demanded a patio!

So Andrew and I built a patio over the past three weekends. We started with an ordinary grassy patch...

Then we dug a hole. It was 12'x12' and 5 inches deep at the end close to the house and 7 inches deep away from the house.We graded away from the house so the rainwater would flow away from the house (so to prevent any water damage to the basement). We filled this with three loads of gravel (about 3" deep)...

 ...followed by one inch of sand. We then tamped it down with a tamper and tried to make it as level as possible.

In come the concrete pavers!! We got them at Home Depot for 44 cents each. They're made to look like brick (pretty effectively!), but are seriously cheaper. We laid the bricks down on the sand and gently tap them into the ground with a rubber mallet.

This part was terrible. We hadn't realized just how level the sand had to be. This part took a lot of adding sand, removing sand, and cursing. Eventually I got the hang of it though. Sand was poured over and brushed into the cracks...

And furniture and grill added! (Sand makes patio look white washed - we need to figure out how to clean it without removing sand from the cracks - any ideas?) We've also started making a garden bed in the area closest to the camera in the picture below. This will help prevent the water from collecting on the patio - and will serve for aesthetic purposes.