The Start of Gardening Season

Mmm, we’ve had some gorgeous sunny days, followed by rain, a perfect setup for whipping the yard back into shape.

Got my front door garden filled and planted. Hopefully the flowers will fill out a little more. I had visions of it cascading over the front… I guess we shall see…

Behind the flowers, I planted a couple rows of various lettuce seeds, in the back corner six spots for sugar snap peas, in the corner behind the post some radishes, and then at two random spots at the back, some allysum—the first spot because Sophie spilled the seed packet there, and the second spot to balance out the first one and make it look intentional. Again, we shall see…

The Square Foot Garden (SFG) area in our side yard is entering it’s third year. (Notes about last year here.) Here’s the “before” at the start of last weekend.

We decided it was time to paint them white (for protection and, well, prettiness) and also to make the square one (installed two years ago, following the slope of the ground) level like the long one (installed last year after we realized level is better, the water doesn’t all pool at the lower side then. Plus, I think it’s, well, prettier.)

Here are some in-process shots. We moved some of the dirt from the square bed into the front door garden. Lucy helped with that part. Later, some neighbor friends joined Sophie in looking for worms. Wow, there were a lot of them! (Good news for our garden.)

In all this fun, we missed Heidi, of course, but she’s still off having a fab time with Oma and Opa… The skirt she’s wearing is one Oma finished for her right before their trip.

Back to the SFGs, here’s the “after.” Well, sort of. I should add a second coat of paint. Then we also need to refill the square bed. And of course plant stuff! I can’t wait! (To plant, not paint.)

 
In the back yard, we have two little flower beds right near the patio. The one under the stairs was filled with hostas. Until two (or 3?) years ago that is, when Ken oversprayed with some weed killers. Since then it’s been only half-filled with hostas. He killed one whole row!!! (Hmm, I guess I didn’t take a “before” picture, but empty row is visible in photo of Lucy on slide, last photo.)

So anyway, I divided the remaining ones (which were getting way too big) and also stole a few plants from the other bed. Hopefully any residual poison is gone and the newly planted stuff will thrive. We shall see…

(Note: spray weed killers have been banned from our yard. We now pull out dandelions up with one of those dandelion weeder tools. While more time-consuming, also very therapeutic.)

The second bed in back was filled with perennials when we moved in. But since I largely ignored it and didn’t know what I was doing when I did give it some attention, it’s a bit of a mess these days. I tried to clean out what I thought were weeds. And also grouped what I think are good plants near each other again, instead of spaced out all over the bed. What do you think?

Hush up, people, that is the “after.” Maybe I should clean up a little more of the straw. Oh, and see the tulip, bottom left. It’s my one and only tulip. Not sure where it came from. Just appeared there 4 years ago. Do tulips migrate? (I really know very little about gardening.)

Lucy didn’t help much with the work in back; instead, spent her time on the slide. I got it from someone on Freecycle with the intentions of building a frame for it last summer. But it works just as well set up on our deck stairs—maybe even better since the stairs offer a much safer way for my 2-year-old to get to the top than the usual ladders you find on slides. Wheeeeee!

So, how green is your thumb?