The yard is looking good!

The weekend of the 12th I had the mulch delivered and got most of it down, planted all the lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, zukes and cukes. I am using Veggie Alive from a company called Garden's Alive (www.gardensalive.com) to fertilize the veggie garden and chose the more economical way to spread by digging small trenches next to each row and spreading the fertilizer in the trenches. I also got the window boxes set up with Sweet Potato Blackies, Purple Salsa Salvia, a mix of Alyssum, and Verbena. Overnight the Verbena grew a good amount of shoots. I am looking foward to that growing and flowering, with its light purple flowers and white trim it should be a nice contrast to the dark Blackies and Salvia.
Last weekend it rained like Noah was coming and got really cold. Who would have thought it would drop to 40 in May? Because of that (I am guessing) my cucumer plants didn't make it. I just dug them up today and am planning on buying more plants to replace them.
Being so cold you would think that the lettuce would have grown incredibly, but no such luck. Last year everything was in containers, not directly in the ground, so this is a whole new experience for me. None of the veggie plants look too good, but I do have flowers on my tomatoes already.
Speaking of flowers for the first time in about 4 years I have flowers on the blueberry bushes. Not to many, but it is a start. I need to cover them with netting to keep the albeit cute, but pesky birds away! That is on the list for this upcoming weekend along with protecting my strawberry plants (and everything else) from those city rats (aka squirrels).
My morning glories are growing pretty well and the sweet peas are about 4-5" right now and I have already pinched off the top set of leaves in the hopes that they will develop more flowers this year. The Moonflowers out front look a bit weak, but again the sun isn't hitting them as much as it will in a few months so hopefully that will jump start their growth.
Still on the hunt for squirrel repelant that works (Shake Away was a HUGE disappointment). This weekend I am going to try the "all-natural" thing of garlic, hot peppers and water - all blended and strained to keep them away from my precious flowers and veggies. Now if I could just keep the massive amounts of sparrows and pigeons away from my feeders it would be a grerat day!