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Randy helped me in the garden this morning so we got just as much weeding done today as we did yesterday in about half the time. He doesn't seem to find gardening as fun as I do, or at least not the whole hunched over ripping up grass part.
Before Weeding:
After weeding:
and an alternative image of the sun bed after weeding:
We are getting closer to the end of the paved portion of the drive way and we have decided to go out and get more rocks tomorrow before we go grocery shopping because we have a miniscule pile left of mostly small rocks and a whole lot of flower bed left to edge. Randy and I got the measurements for the Sun bed today and I am drawing up a rough layout.
The thick black lines are the edge of the house and drive way and the green line denotes where the edge of the flower bed will be. All the space between the black and green lines will have the grass ripped up and composted then have *hopefully* some home grown black gold layered on top of it as a mulch until spring when I start planting. The top of the picture is west, to give an idea of sun exposure. The flower bed along the drive way is going to be three feet wide and the flower bed along the edge of the house *at the bottom of the picture* will be 5' deep and thats where I plan on having a few butterfly bushes and the rest of the hummer/butterfly garden.
Found a fuzzy caterpillar. Dont know what kind it is, though, and couldn't find a good match online to identify it.
We have a show this weekend so I need to get to making jewelry, but I really want to start planning what I am going to plant where in the Sun garden. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas I would love to hear them :D
Oh yeah; something got into the compost last night and we are thinking about moving the grass and leaf pile to the fence line by the woods instead of behind the barn. I guess we'll see how that works out.
I got up an hour earlier than what I usually do in an attempt to get more done in the yard before it got too hot. I worked for about two and a half hours. Solved the wheelbarrow dillema for now by substituting a red wagon cart that I found in the old horse barn; it made carting rocks and pulled weeds much easier.
I transplanted the irises in the front flower bed. I was worried it I was doing it right, but I figured I'll never learn unless I try, so hopefully they wont die.
Before:
and after: I spread some bone meal before setting them in their new home. I just hope I didn't plant them too deep.
I am going to plant peppermint in the spring in the rest of the bed and I want to put a statue in the corner by the steps.
I also did more work in the sun bed. Hazel kept me company for a little while. Before weeding:
and after weeding:
I hate grass. every one of those little buggers has their own root system that is about 3000 feet deep.
Took some pictures of the compost piles: the pile in the foreground of the photo is just grass and plants that i have been clearing out of the flower beds these past few days on some dead leaves from last year. the chicken wire and broken door protect food scraps mixed with grass and leaves from Hazel dragging all over the yard and feasting on. I am not putting in any meat or dairy products, but that doesn't stop her.
This next photo is of Iris row: I haven't dont anything to it yet, but I am using this feature of the garden as a barrier between the vegetable garden and the rest of the yard. I plan on thinning and transplanting all the irises since they haven't flowered in years and when we get more rocks I am going to put a rock border around it. I think everything looks better with a rock border.:-P I am also going to have a little walk way right in the middle to make it easier to access the vegetable garden without having to hop over all the plants.
When I got up this morning I wasn't planning on starting the raised bed around this oak tree, but thats what happened. I need more rocks. I want the finished bed to be about 10" deep, so I am probably going to end up with three layers of stones. All of these rocks were ones that Randy's grandma had piled up by the back fence line. Eventually i would like to have a raised bed around the bases of all the trees. Like I said, I am gonna need more rocks :-P
And thats that for today: my fingers are sore from pulling up grass and I am pretty sure I am sun burnt but I am a happy tree hugging dirt worshipper.
I spent an hour in the garden this morning weeding: I have determined we need to get a wheelbarrow for carting stuff around. I am getting tired of making a zillion trips to the compost pile with all the weeds and grass i have been pulling up. We also need to get a reel mower soon: I know it sounds crazy to get a reel mower for mowing 1.5 acres of land, but I am determined and stubbron and Randy thinks its a good idea, so we're going to go for it. If anything it will be more motivation to landscape as much of the property as possible so we wont have to mow as much :-P
This is the front flower bed: I weeded it out three days ago but left the irises the way they were because I didn't know if I should move them or not. Will be consulting the forums and figuring all that out shortly. We totally took the time to move all the rocks we had collected from the apartment to the house; hooray!
This is our house: we have been living here for two weeks now, even though we have really only been in the house for one week because of traveling and stuff. Eventually I plan on having the entire front of the house be a flower bed coming about three to four feet away from the house: from the bush at the far left to the porch will be for the most part a butterfly garden then the bed is going to continue around the front of the porch to the walk way and drive way.
This is the sun bed after only one day of weeding: I am laying the rock edging as I go so we can get an idea of how many more we are going to need: luckily there are a lot of creeks around here with an abundance of free rocks. All we have to do is put forth the effort to lug them around. I took this picture this morning before I started working in the garden.
This is another view of the sun garden this morning. I plan on moving the bushes out of this garden and to... somewhere else. dont know where to yet.
And this is the sun garden after I finished weeding for the day. The rocks extend about 1/3 of the way down the drive way: I will only be edging the drive way as far as it is paved, which is about half the length of the entire drive way.
I would like to have this bed finished in about two or three weeks then I am going to start on a riased bed around the base of one of the big trees in the back yard. Randy says his grandma realy liked rock borders for her flower beds, too. That makes me feel pretty good.
More pictures and another update tomorrow!
We moved out to the country and we are now completely settled in: no more boxes to unpack or pictures to hang or drawers to organize.
I am in heaven right now: 1.5 acreas of rich earth to tend.The house we are living in was built by my boyfriends grandfather and great uncle and my boyfriend spent much of his childhood in this house with his grandparents. Years ago when we first moved to Tennessee this house was our first real home together. After messing around in apartments for three years we have come back and I am determined to not take it for granted this time. I have already started cleaning up some of the beds that have been overgrown to the point that they can only be considered flower beds if one uses their imagination.
Does anyone have any advice for dividing iris bulbs? there are tons of irises growing all over the property but none of them have bloomed in years: I think it is because they are over crowded and I think I would like to divide them and replant them this fall, but I dont know if that is the right thing to do.
I got a van Bourgondien catalog in the mail and it came with a coupon of $50 worth of free product if I order $100 or more. I have started a list of plants I want to get on the fall order:
1 order of 6 saffron crocus
1 plant of heirloom double crown imperial
1 plant of heirloom madonna lily
1 plant of Astrantia "moulin rouge"
1 order of 10 lily of the valley
1 plant of old fashioned bleeding hearts
1 order of 12 fox's grape
1 plant of Astilbe "granat"
1 order of a hosta grab bag *I couldn't decide which type I wanted, so I went for the grab bag :-P)
Has anyone ordered from this company before or grown any of these plants? I ordered from them years ago but I had no idea what I was doing and the poor things couldn't live through me not watering them often enough and the porch not getting enough sun light.
I hope everyone has a great thyme with fall chores!!! *teehee, i love cheesy gardening puns!*
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