Finally! The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and Spring is starting to make it's presence known!
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| The backyard as seen from the bathroom window. Notice the squirrel on my ladder? |
Last year was a bit of a slight disaster (learning the hard way about black walnut trees and what they do to gardens) as far as gardening went. We also were just so darned busy that our first spring and summer in this place was spent away from home more than at home! This year, our goal is to really make the backyard a nice place to hang out and be in (and not just for the pups!)
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The bird flower garden (my nickname for it) at the beginning of this week!
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The bird flower garden as of today.
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We should be back to at least weekly updates with the garden and yard changes (I promise this year we're actually going to do something!) The above pictures are of what I'm calling my bird flower garden (since it's under my bird feeders). Last year I bought the bulbs for those plants on clearance and they weren't looking good at all, so I really didn't expect them to come up this year, but they did! I do have seeds planted in the middle there, but I'm not sure they'll come up. To the ride side (almost covering the flowers) is some type of bulb-ed flower plant that has these little white flowers. It was here when we moved in (it was just more in the area of the garden we dug up that we're going to reseed for grass this year) and I'm trying to coax it into this garden a little bit more. I think I'd really like to get it to grow next to the fence for me!
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| This is to the side of the little porch in the backyard. I planted some wildflower seeds here. |
Last year this patch was grass and weeds (mostly weeds) so I dug it up and cleared it out (please ignore the pop bottles...Kyokin finds them and leaves them EVERYWHERE!) and I've planted a package of wildflower seeds. I'm hoping to eventually get wild flowers to grow along the house in the back here as we eventually want to extend the little patio out (it's so tiny it's pointless right now).
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| The flowers of the front yard. |
To be honest, I had forgotten that there were tulips here! I have some tulips I had bought last year and put in a pot I might move over here. Either way, I've tried to pull up all of the ground cover that grows here (it smells terrible and this is right under my bedroom window, so I'd rather get some flowers growing well here) and I've planted an assortment of seeds (we'll see what comes up!).
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| The strawberries I just planted. |
This will be my first time attempting to grow strawberries. I used to hate them, but I've started finding ways to enjoy eating them! I'm both excited and nervous about this attempt.
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| The compost heap! |
We also started this year a "trash can compost heap". It's something we've been tossing around for quite a while, but it became a final decision when we were given a good deal of fresh veggies to preserve (I just had seen enough of throwing away the odds and ends when we could be doing something with them!).
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| Dehydrated onions, potatoes, and cabbage. |
So, I started collecting the "odds and ends" (peels, not good parts ect) and over the weekend we got the stuff together to start the heap. I used the soil from the potatoes we did last year (we experimented with store bought potatoes that were beginning to sprout) to start the compost heap with (as well as with a bag of compost mixed in). I will say it here. The store bought potatoes (at least our experience with them compared to with the seeder potatoes) did not grown nearly as well. We got one or two small potatoes per bucket/bag. This year we're taking a break from potatoes as far as growing goes and we're going to try some vertical growing methods we've been reading about.
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| The Pool Garden from last year! |
This year, we're taking our pool garden from last year and planting herbs in it. There are a few carrot sprouts from last year already growing (it was neat that we found so many sprouts from last year growing already in there this year). We've already seeded the pool garden and now we're just waiting to see what grows in addition to the things left over from last year! (The trellis is there because Kyokin doesn't understand not running through the garden if we don't put something up in it.) We still have to figure out how and where exactly we want to grow our tomatoes (we're leaning towards reusing the buckets from potatoes for them because I've read online that they actually do well in that environment). As far as seed starters go, it was a sore disappointment. Even with our little "green house" moved inside there just wasn't enough steady light for them to get strong and start growing. Mike's talking about wanting to see about putting together a small greenhouse so we can grow outside over the winter. We haven't decided anything for sure one way or the other yet though.
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| Tatted beaded necklace. |
As far as other news goes, I slightly herniated a disc in my back (doh!) so gardening and a chunk of other tasks I normally enjoy are off the table for a bit. I've taken this extra time and have spent it crafting (I have two baby sets I'm working on) and reading. I made this tatted necklace and I think with some more practice I might sell things like this on Etsy (*gasp* I really am considering opening up an etsy store for some of my made goodies!). I guess that's it for this week. I feel bad that my post was so to the point, but there was alot of set up to get done here! I hope everyone has a blessed week!
