Garden Update

Well here is August. We scaled back on the garden this year, planting only one bed fully and adding a pumpkin plant in the middle bed.

 

The reason for scaling back?

That'd be me, 6 months pregnant.  I found out after having planned out this year's garden, . Not wanting a repeat of 2010 (where I'd already planted all 3 beds fully before finding out I was pregnant with G), we immediately changed plans.

But we've taken in a decent amount already. About 6 zucchini and an equal number of squash and 4 cucumbers.  But the real winner this year, so far, is the pumpkin plant.

He's about half the length of the bed already and has overflowed on both sides.  So far I've counted 5 pumpkins on the vine, with more blossoms appearing, including this big boy.
 

It's going to be a fun Halloween.

Finally

After the wettest April on record, I finally got into the garden today.

For better or worse, it wasn't for the landscaping plans we had drawn up.  Instead, I decided to mulch and plant out the bed under our river birch clump.

Four years ago we had planted a few plants there - one lavender, two Russian sage, one prairie star - with the intention of planting more.

Yeah.

So!  Today I went thru the bed, weeded, added mulch, and then went to the garden center.  My inspiration was this post from Fennel and Fern.  I loved the idea of using only a few plants to create texture.

So I ended up with more lavender, cranesbill geranium and dwarf fountain grass.

Obviously on a much smaller scale though.  You can see that original lavender plant up front.  So I added 6 more of that (2 up front by the other lavender, 4 in the back row), 3 of the geranium and 3 of the fountain grass (that's G peeking out between the trees. he's 2 1/2 now).

It is harder to create the close plantings in the original photo because of the river birch's roots.  But if these plants fill in as much as the lavender, it should look lovely.  I may eventually try and add more of the geranium and fountain grass, but we'll see.

Looking forward for 2013

So, last year one thing I didn't mention is that we had landscaping plans drawn up for the backyard by a local Landscape Artist.  The reason I didn't mention it is because we had a massive drought last year, so we didn't do anything with the plan.

In the meantime, we've had a chance to pour over the plan and make changes and adjustments on our own.  So here's what we're looking at:

Our focus is going to be on the west side of the yard this year.  Diggers Hotline came today to mark electrical lines.  This coming weekend we're going to be transplanting the apple tree and probably digging out and potentially transplanting the shrub clump to the west of the patio before the ticket "expires".

Other yard to-do items that I can think of off the top of my head:

• thatching
• aerating
• seeding
• garage organizing
• yard sale

And, of course, the mutant veggie garden.  We're down to about 2 gallons of tomato sauce and pulled out the last bag of salsa just this week.