Landscaping and gardening

It all started on June 1. We had 5 cubic yards of loam/soil/whatever delivered for various projects around the exterior of the house. And by delivered I mean dumped in the middle of the driveway. Here it is, in all its little-boy-magnet glory.

Yep, this was great to have. Just great. Trying to keep Ashton and Alex off this heap was so exhausting I not only gave up but handed them their shovels.

The hell with it.

So this dirt went everywhere, including (of course) in the house - my favorite place for it. But also in the yard. Jason and Ashton seeded the entire backyard and front lawn in about 6 hours. The owners before us had two big dogs whose pee really did a number on the grass. There were big bald spots. So Jason got that growing and it is thicker and greener than ever! I don't have a before and after on that yet. I better get one soon, we are a week into a mandatory water ban in Natick due to some sort of equipment failure - everything is fading fast despite Jason's illicit midnight watering.

Besides that, we I mean Jason has been swapping out the pre-existing red mulch with brown and edging certain areas with stone. A la:

Vs.

There's lot of little areas where we I mean Jason did that and it looks really nice.

We definitely wanted to start a garden too. The "before before before" of the area we picked, which is right next to our side door and underneath our dining area windows:

The "before before" after we yanked all that out.

Then just the regular before (or, first "after")?

And this is today. As you can see, we I mean Jason clearly overplanted.

It's like the Hunger Games in there and they haven't even hit their prime yet! Our first harvest was a banana pepper a couple of weeks ago.

Growing these things is a waste of space if you want my opinion. You can't eat them raw and they cost about $0.12 at the store if you actually need one to cook with. But there are about zero recipes in my repertoire that call for banana peppers so it's like, what's the point.  Anyway, Ashton proudly carried it around for a couple hours, it sat in the basket and then went soft and I threw it away.

And then this week, we got another useless pepper but also a zucchini! Look at Alex's technique:

Big ol' slice right through the middle ;) 

But the zucchini, ohhh the zucchini. Jason sauteed it up and the boys ate it all for dinner! They were so excited to have helped grow something that it was gobbled up with abandon and they asked for more!

At least, that's how the legend goes. I was at a haircut appointment and didn't actually see this "miracle" transpire. Jason claims it is 100% true: they had a completely different approach to this food that they cut out of the garden themselves and couldn't wait to try it. We'll see, then, what happens with the tomatoes. Tomatoes are currently on the black list, at least, store-bought ones. What will I do if the boys really do eat anything they can grow?? We are going to need a lot bigger garden!