Everything is Growing!

The peas have grown from this...

To this! We've gotten several meals from them.     
We are especially enjoying the snap peas in stir fry.

Stella, our grand-daughter, loves to eat peas from the garden.

She picks out each pea and eats it up.

 The garden is shaping up. Many, many 5 gallon buckets of weeds later we have a yard. Still lots of weeds, but I'm after them every day.










 You can see the green bean teepee in the corner. The green beans are about 8" tall now. It'll be great when it's all covered.

I made this one out of 1x2x10  cedar lumber.
 I used 8 of them. I dug a trench around the base and planted green beans and cucumbers.

The grass is filling in all over the yard. We put wood chips around the bushes and trees as well as the garden paths. The wood chips we got free through craigslist.

Grass is filling in here too.

Tomatillos are in this bed. Half are green, the other half is purple.

Here's the bed of squash. Half are yellow, summer squash. The other half are zucchini.

This bed has Roma's and cherry tomatoes.

This bed is all Roma's with the exception of the 3 down the middle. They are 3 different kinds of beefsteaks I planted over 50 tomato plants this year.

The roses I planted are blooming. Looks like it's time to dead- head again.

The Astilbe is loving being in the ground. The mulch is twigs broken into 4-6" pieces. I like the texture is lends.

Sweet potato growing in this pot. Time to add more soil.










Another month we'll be eating more from the garden. It's a magical time.

Early Morning Sun on My Garden

    I love the way the early morning sun shines on my garden. It lights it up with a warm glow that warms my heart. The peas are all facing the sun. They seem to be so happy as the sun kisses them on the forehead and tells them to grow.

 

The garden I'm looking at is a new garden. I'm imagining what it will look like in its full glory this fall. Tall tomatoes, green beans and cucumbers, huge squash plants, I can see it. I have about twice as much room as the last garden so I'm planting more, but still having trouble fitting it all in. Every year I plant something I've never grown before.

Here's the backyard before much had been done.

This year I'm planting tomatillos, green and purple. Yes, there are purple tomatillos! I'm excited about anything purple in the garden. I grew some purple green beans one year, but they turned green when we cooked them, disappointing. I was hoping to serve purple green beans to my kids, but instead it ended up being a fun, magical experience to watch them turn green while they cooked. I love being surprised by new plants.  I've also planted peas, which I've never grown successfully so far. The peas are about 4" tall now and seem fine so I think we'll get some peas this year. I planted two varieties, Sugar snap and
Regular peas.
 

 I've built raised beds, a bench, some stairs from the deck and made a path so far.
 The yard was just dirt when we got here. A little grass, but mostly dandelions and other weeds. I dug up a wheelbarrow full of dandelions yesterday, enough for one day, my back told me. Still have more to do. I want to do it organically so I'm digging them up. I will follow with vinegar and soap mixed with water in a spray bottle. It helps some.

 Here's the bench I made, I used the same wood as the garden. I call it my back bench. When my back hurts I can lay on it for a while till it feels better. I've wanted to make one for years, finally I did it!

When we moved in here the 'stairs' from the deck to the back yard consisted of a big rock and pavers piled up. I dug those out, poured a concrete pad (my first one), and built some stairs.

 They look fine, and they're safe. The cement was rough when it dried so I added finishing cement on the top 1/2". When I took the wood form off, it made the cement crack. It's not perfect, but very usable. My first stairs as well! They turned out fine, no complaints.

 Okay... lessons learned when pouring cement.

Go 6" deep instead of 4" like I did. (I was using up cement I had and didn't want to by more.) I'll do 6" next time. I think maybe it wouldn't have cracked if it was 6" deep, but I really don't know.

 Before and after, so far. I made a pathway, which is still in progress. I found the rocks on the property so  I thought I'd use them line the path. We were considering edging but didn't want to buy anything.

This works and the cats seem to like it.

 I have grass to plant and a few flowerbeds to make before I'm done. Well, the list is long. That sandbox in the middle had play equipment on it. Not sure what to do with that area as well as the corner. A greenhouse in one spot, a green bean tepee in the other, but haven't decided which is which. That's OK, inspiration will strike one day.

  I have enough weeds to pull and double digging the new raised beds has to be done. Plenty to keep me busy for a while. I've planted lots of flower seeds, and plan to fill the new beds with them. They're in the little greenhouse with the veges and doing fine!

I did make this little raised bed for a couple roses and sweet peas that I planted to vine up the trellis behind it. I made that trellis abut 15 years ago out of apple branches. A storm damaged it a bit right before we moved here. Another thing on the to do list.

  All in all I think the yard is coming along. One thing at a time and before you know it we'll have a beautiful yard. Then the front......Food first then pretty.

We have lilacs in our new yard. It's my favorite flower so I'm pretty happy!

More to come...

We've Moved!

  We have moved! About an hour from where we were. It's been very busy as you can imagine.

  It all started with a flood in the basement. Bob's office and my craft/ sewing room were the victims. Bob was actually on a plane coming home from a business trip when it happened. I had to stop the cleanup part way through to go pick him up. He came home to a big mess. I had saved most everything important. Our days ahead were packing those two rooms, taking out the wet carpet, renting a dehumidifier machine to help dry out the basement.
It was a lot of work. This all happened a few weeks before Christmas. So after getting it under control we focused on Christmas with our family. At some point I thought maybe this is a sign to move. We had talked about moving this spring or summer. We looked at available housing. There was more available than last summer when we couldn't find anything decent for the right price. We found a house that has worked out. It's bigger than the last one so we're enjoying spreading out a bit. Stella, (our grand-daughter), is happy with her own bedroom. Grandma has had fun decorating. Not done yet! Needs some pink paint next. So much to do. This blog has suffered I'm afraid. We had the pleasure of taking care of Stella and her mom right after we moved in, as Kym had surgery on her hand. Stella is 9 mos now and very busy crawling everywhere. We also watched Stella last week while Kym and her boyfriend went on vacation. We're having such fun with all the baby time.

  The yard here needs lots of help. The landlord has consented to me making some raised beds for the garden. It's already March so I'll have to get that going soon. The long list of things to do keeps growing.
I left my huge compost pile behind. I took some of it but without a pickup it's hard. We're going back tomorrow to get my apple branches and as much compost as we can carry in trash bag lined boxes.
I worked hard for all that compost. I can at least get the finished compost and leave the rest for the next tenant, if they want it.  

  We also seem to have a rabbit that lives in the backyard. So measures will be taken in the garden. I plan on building a greenhouse from old windows I've collected. Many projects will get documented and shared on here. Sounds like fun to me. More to come...