Photos from around the yard

Seedlings!

Some of these you'll have to enlarge to see them better.

Peas

Spinach

Chard

Carrots (towards the bottom of the photo)

Radishes

Transplans: lettuce, carrots, onion, shallots, collards, kale, garlic

To-do update

I'm thinking we're ahead of the game this year.

• Re-do the fireplace bed
• De-thatch the yard
• Finish overseeding the last of the backyard
• Plant out the front walkway beds
• Get rid of the barberry bush
• Fill in holes in the yard
• Buy and install a rain barrel
• Put in stepping stone path
• Outdoor lighting
• Design, create and install screens for the arbor
• Finish master plan of the yard

Fireplace Bed is DONE!

This particular item has been on the to-do list for two years now.  The bed always starts off pretty in spring and then goes to hell quickly.

So, we decided to revamp the bed.  The difficulty was that the bedding was little rocks, which had to be removed before anything was planted.  All the old plants had to be removed and sorted.  And, lastly, there was a tree that had started growing along the foundation that needed to be destroyed.  I had cut the tree down but the stump still needed to be removed.  And all of that even before things were planted.

In all, it was a daunting project to start.  But we decided today that now was as good a time as any.

First, the stumps were removed:

Then the stones were removed and dumped out back.  All of that work apparently scared up some ground bees.  I'm utterly terrified of bees, so I layed out the plants and let Eric do the planting.  The end result:

In the bed went hostas, native columbine, bellflower and bee balm.  Feels really good to have that done.  It'll be nice to see things bloom this summer.

Garden Beds 2010

So, the garden is finally taking shape.  It started with a very large pile of dirt:

Said pile of dirt was meant to fill the three raised beds.

Over 40 wheelbarrow loads later:

That was step one.  We figured that'd be good enough and then we could plant.  Until the dogs started tearing thru the beds, eating the dirt, and digging in it to create a cool spot to lay in.  That's generally not good for seedlings.

So step two was fencing the beds in with chicken wire.  Once that was installed, we could plant early seeds and transplants:

The far right bed contains two rows each of chard and carrots, 4 teepee trellises for peas and spinach, and 2 bean transplants.  The middle bed contains a row of radishes, a row of alternating carrot and lettuce transplants, two sets of kale and collard plantings, then rows of onions, leeks and shallots.  The far left bed will be planted at the end of the month with tomatoes, etc.

Front Walkway re-planting

Last year we attempted to fill in the spot where a large juniper died with two gold japanese yew.  While lovely, they don't exactly cover the ground much.  Hence, we had a pretty bad problem keeping the weeds out.


So, this year we're going to add in some plants to compliment what currently exists.  The main planting will take place in the bed in the right portion of the photo.  It will be anchored by the existing japanese barberry and planted around the yews.  The plants we chose:

Lady's Mantle "Auslese"


Sea Thrift "Armada Rose"


Day Lily "Stella de Oro", "Bright Sunset" and "Wild Horses"




Bearded Iris "Impressionist"


Pincushion "Butterfly Blue"


In addition, we'll be adding more of the same Coralbells (the small red plant in the bed).  And we'll be transplanting some of our Siberian Irises from the backyard.


Along the narrow edge of bed between the walkway and the grass, we'll be planting Sedum "October Daphne"

Stuff's growing!!

I peeked around outside mid-week this week and didn't see any of the usual suspects (daffodils, irises, crocus, hyacinth) popping out.

Then the weather got cold on Saturday and we ended up with about an inch of snow.

But wandering around Sunday morning I noticed that they had sneakily pushed thru.  The daffodils are emerging and the irises are greening up in the bean bed. In the garage bed, the sedum, hollyhock and phlox are peeking up from their crowns and my earliest daffodils are poking thru the siberian irises.

I'll be taking notes and photos tonight.  But it looks like spring is FINALLY here!

What's left in the larder?

As spring approaches, I'm taking stock of what items we still have left in our freezer and cellar.  Not that we need to clean it out, since we'll have several months before new fresh produce starts rolling in.  But it's good to know what you've got.

We still have:

sun-dried tomatoes
red onions
white onions
shallots (LOADS of shallots!)
peppers
jalapenos
squash
collards
sukuma wiki
dried herbs - rosemary, parsley, oregano

I think I've done it

Created our garden neighborhoods, that is.

Because we expanded our crop selection this year, I had to (yet again) adjust our bed layout with pests and companions in mind. To make this more difficult, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't re-planting a bed with the same item in the same location. So this year if I combined squash and collards, I needed to do so carefully.

I knew we were rotating the tomatoes to the furthest east bed since it hadn't seen a member of the solanaceae family since 2007, which should have allow for enough time for any soil bacteria or other nasties to subside. So that was my leaping off point for the other two beds.

The end result is the following rudimentary outline:

East Bed: Tomato, Red Onion, Yellow Onion, Leek
Middle Bed: Cucumber, Squash, Corn, Collards, Kale, Radish, Lettuce, Carrot, Garlic
West Bed: Beans, Peas, Swiss Chard, Spinach, Carrots

Eventually I need to break this out further into what varieties will go in each location. Some particular items may move - like I may plant pole beans with the corn and squash in the traditional Three Sisters combination.

There will also be a LOT of interplanting with herbs and vegetables. More than last year. It's going to be very dynamic and biodiverse. Exciting stuff!

2010 To Do List

Getting an early jump on things this year. Some of these items may be "wish list" to-dos, others are more mandatory. In no particular order:

• Re-do the fireplace bed
• Finish overseeding the last of the backyard
• Plant out the front walkway beds
• Get rid of the barberry bush
• Fill in holes in the yard
• Buy and install a rain barrel
• Put in stepping stone path
• Outdoor lighting
  
• Design, create and install screens for the arbor
• Finish master plan of the yard