More Garden Fun

This past year in the new-old house was mostly spent working on inside projects, but I've been itching to play outside! Memorial Day weekend was dedicated to just that, and I have to say Mike put the most backbreaking labor into it all. Even the littles helped, though, so we are all proud of what we got done.

While Mike worked away at the big project, the rest of us did some littler ones. First up was cleaning out all the dead leaves and debris from the area that runs along the whole front of the house. The kids helped move alllllll the pretty crystal rocks into a pile, then when clean-out was done, they moved them allllll back into a border again!

The smaller rocks were getting dragged around by the garden hose, feet, etc., so the larger rocks are now strategically places to catch the hose instead.

You could do a whole mineralogy unit with these!

And yes, most were found in New Mexico.

Next we relocated a small garden area, which then doubled the size of our outside sitting area, and attacked that with the leaf blower.

Yes, I know the chairs aren't going to stay lined up like that for another five minutes, but at least they aren't lying on their backs or being stacked as forts. For now. Ooooh, and empty pots! We can't have that, now can we?

My mother in law started this rock garden to keep the hillside back from the driveway ages ago - Mike talks about driving down the road and having to turn back because she had spotted a flat rock! I've tried adding to it over the past year, and finally got it done this weekend, with rocks we cleared away from other areas. 

I planted several things, but this Creeping Jenny is really taking off.

Now for Daddy's project:

The main garden is 17 x 27 feet, and the add-on to the left is the 10x10 cage that came from what is now the seating area. A week ago, this whole area was the burn area, and a year ago it was (unbeknownst to us) a huge underground yellow jacket nest. We found out about the latter very painfully, when someone poked a stick down the entrance. That was subsequently dug up and burned, then a whole bunch of brush from the property was burned there. We started adding dead leaves and chicken coop clean-outs a while back, then this weekend Mike brought many, many trailer-loads of dirt from the orchard (with some help from Christopher), and tilled it all together. Two nice hot, sunny days for driving in fence posts and stringing up chain link (with the deer watching and laughing), and I have a garden!

There are cinder blocks alllll over the property, and as we run across one we are adding it to this 'wall'. Leaf mulch for now, a larger potato patch next year. Or strawberries. Something will go there.

The 10x10 area is now the pumpkin patch.

You can tell by this!

'Maters

'Taters

Sweet peppers

Can you guess what's here?

Bean greens (in another place as well - they never look like enough when you are starting those peat pellets...)

Coming soon: a couple rows of carrots and beets

And a couple rows of corn!

Hooray for green things! And popsicles on hot days. Whew!

Redneck Raised Garden

So, I've been busy. Summer Reading registration started off with 30% more kids on the first day than last year (hooray for having our Facebook back!). Everyone in the free world had a birthday in May, and we were either hosting or going to their party (in fact, I just dropped Christopher off at another one.) Kids getting bigger now means dance recitals and band concerts. And, of course, the house is still a work in progress.

All of which to say, I have not done much blogging this month, have I? And I don't feel the tiniest bit guilty about it. Hopefully, though, now that the end-of-school-year-craziness is at least done, I can start to show you some of the things we have been up to!

One of the banes of my existence has been a very old freezer that was camped out in the driveway. Remember in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when he escaped the nuclear explosion by diving inside this huge clunky old freezer? I think this is the same one. We disposed of the door with no problem, but in order to take the shell itself to the dump, you have to certify it has had the freon removed. I think this thing dates from before God invented freon, so that was a problem. And it is HEAVY. And looking like - well, trash - in the front of my driveway.

Okay, fine, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em! Or, something to that effect.

First, flip it on its back and cut the shelves out.

Well, that's pretty. See the cans of spray paint? It took three and a half to cover all the rust.

Mike filled it most of the way with lava rock, then the rest of the way with dirt from the orchard. I started some flower seeds I have found around the place in eat pellets, and transferred in those that sprouted.

I have no idea what is growing in there right now.

Then I let the kids have at it!

We had a few "less is more" talks, but I think they were largely ignored. I think it looks awesome - and I love how Logan puts smiley faces on everything!

Can you tell which one was mine? I may need to go add some polka-dots.

I put burlap on the other three sides, so it isn't quite as obvious from the road, but I think in all it's a vast improvement over the dead-appliance-in-the-driveway look! Can't wait until things start blooming in it!

On the Move Part 2

I don't want to give a negative impression of our new home by just talking about work we need to do. Besides the house being roomy and well-built, the yard outside is AMAZING. My mother in law was a Master Gardener, and spring is just a fabulous time here! Every day I find a new surprise - today it was these:

Fifty years of vinca has carpeted the whole area.

The top to the bird feeder is somewhere under the flowers...

The lilacs smell heavenly,

both purple

and white.

There are other treasures!

This will be righted and filled with something flowery that can spill over the sides. For right now, it is holding these egg sacs:

Walking sticks, maybe? Anybody know?

Whatever this is:

the deer sure like it.

This is...another plant of some sort.

A little rose bush I discovered when I raked away the dead leaves!

And a fairy door buried in another corner!

Daylilies, maybe?

And decades worth of vines:

I have been pulling out dead parts and retraining vines that are trying to climb through things. Like these:

You're pretty, but you really can't stay there! Fortunately, neither can the half-rotten plywood you have wiggled through, so your release date is coming up soon!

Repurposing

Do you like strawberries? Do you buy strawberries from the local grocery store? Then, you don't know what a strawberry is. Go find some strawberries grown on a farm where you can pick them yourself, and taste one. I guarantee your eyes will roll back in your head in sheer bliss, and you will never be able to put one of those store-bought ones in your mouth again.

 

Strawberries actually grow really well in my little garden, so much so that, this year, I gave them twice as much space as they have had. They are already blossoming away, promising many sweet berries to come.

 

The problem?

These guys:

 

Roly-Polies. Pillbugs. Sow Bugs. Whatever you call them, they love strawberries just as much as I do. What they don't eat, the chipmunks run off with. I can put netting over them to keep the latter out, but the pillbugs were still getting into my raised beds.

 

Meanwhile, the library replaced the old behemoth CD racks with sleeker, way-more-compact cases, and the old racks went on auction. Nobody seemed to want them, and I was staring at them, trying to think of a possible use, when I realized...three feet off the ground...three long tiers about four inches deep...hey!

 

For a whopping $10, I got all six of these. They fasten together back to back, making a half-circle. Can you picture them, covered in strawberry plants? Daddy jokes that I am being awfully nice to raise them up fpr the deer, so they don't have to bend down to eat them, but there is already a fence in the works. And, he was nice enough to load them into the truck in well-over-80-degree temps today, when he should be recovering from a three-day road trip hauling uncut lumber and a jeep.

 

I wasn't allowed to help load, being in 'a delicate condition', so F. and I pulled all the little felt inserts out. I now have approximately nine thousand pieces of what amounts to a commercial grade carpet, about 6"x8". The librarian in me can't just throw those away, and I'm already trying to think of craft ides. Unsuccessfully so far, but I'll come up with something. (Any ideas???)

 

I love getting something cheap and using it for a project that could have cost me a fortune, otherwise! What have you repurposed lately?



F is for...

...Flowers and Friends and Fun!

 

With the weather getting warmer, we have spent a lot of time working on the yard. (Isn't it great when home schooling and housework coincide?) The kids had a blast breaking up clumps of dirt, and we practiced counting while planting seeds. Easter Sunday, we made a trip to a couple local stores for plants. C. has had his own garden bed for a couple years, and some of his flowers have already started coming back. This year he added more flowers, and some tomato plants.

 

 

S. and L. are sharing a garden bed this year, and they each picked out two Flowers and two pepper plants. Of three different kinds. This should make for some interesting cross-pollination.

 

I may add something viney to go up that trellis and around the angel. With their permission, of course.

 

The big project, though, was setting up areas to hang out and have Fun with Friends. These benches used to sit in the library's Children's Room, but they were massively in the way of wheelchairs. We put them on auction, and another librarian and I teamed up to outbid everyone else, and then split them.

Both Fire pits were yard sale finds

 

It looks a little drab at the moment, but we planted lots of Flowers, and are waiting for them to take over.

 

We have Flowers in the retaining wall,

 

 

Flowers in pots,

Flower bulbs in the ground,

 

With a baby bottle. I have no idea why.

And Flowers in the wagon.



This is jasmine, which will hopefully climb the handle and spill all over.

There is more jasmine hanging from various tree branches in the area.

 

We also planted Flowers along the house. We get more counting practice while watering, counting to twenty for each plant. There is much competition to see who gets to wield the hose!



Oops - remind me to take that price tag off.

We made and hung houses for our Feathered Friends, adding a little color to the side of the shed.

 

 

Hello, Feathered Friend!

 

 

The hummers won't actually live in the bird houses, they have nests up in our tallest trees. They will, however, buzz around your head and scold you, if their Favorite Feeder is not Full enough.

 

We are having more Fun with the letter "F", and still have a surprise on its way, so stay tuned!