Some pictures from my yard.

Spring is such an exciting time. A chance to try all the new ideas you've collected over the winter and see what worked well for you last season.

I'm very excited about this tree. Indian Red Peach. Last year the day it bloomed it also frosted so I didn't get any peaches. I did have two but but a bit of a grass fire killed the other.

                                        

My garden in February

March

                                                      

April

In front of the house is where I've planted most of my flowers. It seems in January that Spring will never come.

But eventually the snow melts and all the pretty green things start to show their faces.

I call this my Iris Island. It's the inside of the circle drive and one of my favorite spots in the yard. I've been collecting the Iris' for years from the side of the road and from other people that will share. I think last year I counted 15 different colors and can't wait for them to bloom this year to see what I have added. When you dig them in the summer and there is no flower it's surprise for the next year.

There are wild strawberries and violets and last year I also planted some Chocolate Mint as a ground cover. Mint can be very invasive and if you let it get where you don't want it, it's very hard to get rid of. This is the perfect place for it since it can't escape because of the drive and the road. Of all the mints this is my favorite! It's wonderful in brownies, strawberries and later in hot chocolate.

Azaleas are blooming on the house side of the drive.

Here I'm expanding

my flower bed with Roses and Peonies.

I'm thinking that Creeping Thyme will be nice here. In the raised bed I have Hostas and Cabbages and will plant some more flowers.

I got a Bee Hive set up this week and have Bees ordered. They should be safe here in the corner of my garden. I have Borage and of course the garden plants. I added Jerusalim Artichoke and Rosa Rigosa on the outside of the fence for them a bit of a blind from the world.

And then there's these lil' fellas. Three Lemon tree sprouts. They will have to be grown in pots but I'm very pleased with them.

This week I expect to be spending in the garden planting. My Tomatoes and Peppers are ready to go out, I need to finish another bed for the beans and get some Strawberries to put out.

50 Shades of Green!

I love Spring, but with it things pick up pace and sometimes I feel like I'm falling behind. So to fix that I take a walk around the yard to appreciate what I don't have do. Here's nothing but a few things that grow around my house that I get the pleasure of without worry.

House Pepper. Don't know what kind it is, slightly spicey looks like a jalapeno. Kept it alive in the house all winter and been setting it out on the nice days, now it has a pepper. Who knew.

Don't know what this is either but gonna look it up.

These silly Easter flowers come up every year, and every year after they bloom I dig them up and move to where I want....and every year they come back right here!

Poor evergreen bush I trimmed, not so well...

Dug off the side of the road and grow with my snowball bush and some sweetpeas....the flower type.

My Iris Island. Inside part of our circle drive. I've been collecting Iris for probably 8 or so years. When we moved I dug all that I could and brought with. I find them along the side of country roads and even sometimes stop and ask people if I can have a tuber from their flower bed. I think last year I had about 15 different colors.

These are those that I think a re actually called flags. Their purple and have the skinny leaves.

Azalea. Planted these last year and hoping they'll take off. When I was little we lived in Georgia and a row of these between properties. Smelled better than anything else in the world and have never forgotten.

Just a white rose bush.

Evergreens.

Lilac bush. I love Lilacs and brought this as a start with me when we moved.

Let's Get Dirty!

Finally! All the planning is fun, but, after a while the itch to get out and put it to work becomes almost more than I can stand. The part of my garden that is already established is easy to get back into shape for this year. I use a mix of ideas, containers, lasagna, verticle, mulching and raised beds. All of the ideas and uses are based on what I have access to for free or super cheap. Thrilled this year to say, that so far at least, the only thing I have had to put any money/value into is the straw and 20 min with the weed eater. And that I traded for! Seeds are all saved from last year or shared from other people. Newspaper is our local and comes free. Leaves are from our and my daughters yards. Cardboard is from local stores that let me take theirs when they get done stocking. And my compost.

This will be a third year garden. We moved 3 1/2 years ago in July. No garden that year but I did pack my compost, yes really, and got things set up. I use tires with the sidewalls cut out. I prefer to cut both so that you don't have the water standing in the bottom side. Some people don't approve of tires as veggie garden containers. If your one of these please read for a bit more because the info will work in any raised bed, container or even flat on the ground.

 Since I had a summer, winter and spring before I could plant again I laid cardboard out and the tires on top. Cardboard takes longer to decompose. Weeds and grass can't get through it but neither can worms, my itty bitty work horses. I stuffed the tires full of straw, grass clippings, leaves and topped with a couple of scoops of compost. (we had rabbits, chickens, horses, geese, llama....) By fall they had settled to about half full so I topped with more straw which I get mostly from a local (small) pig farmer.

So, to jump ahead to now! By the fall I'm all garden and canned out so I don't do a lot of fall prep. Grass grows between my row and I like it that way because no matter how rainy it is I can still get into my garden and work without compacting the soil I'm planting in or wading the mud. During the spring and summer a few minutes with the weed eater cleans it up nice. 
One benefit to planting this way is that the spring rains don't slow down my gardening but only make it easier. When most are waiting for the ground to dry enough to till I can still layer my beds and the rains soak into the mulch. Humus, Leaf Mold  and Compost carry the ingredients to make a garden healthy and happy. Gardening in soil that has all this natural organic matter creates plants that are more disease and pest resistant. Adding a few amendments for specific plantings, such as calcium for tomatoes to ward off blossom end rot is easy and can be done cheaper because you can just add it to the specific spots where it is needed. Another really wonderful benefit is moisture retention. Between 3x and 500x it's weight, depending on your mix. If you add this to only watering in the specific area (like inside a tire) and keep the surface covered with straw (I consider this my mulching) you can reduce watering drastically. If you are re-purposing water by containing it in water catchment systems (aka rain barrels, burms and swales or a million other ideas), finding free or very cheap matter for your layers and learning to save seeds, your next garden could be free or nearly free to plant. That makes everything that you gather from it as cost effective as it is nutritious. With less watering, less weeding, no equipment costs, fewer pests and therefor less time spent babying it, your garden ends up doing the work for you.

 Looks rough but I feel that the grass holds moisture and nutrition that will go into the new garden year.  

                          After a quick round with the weed eater and a rake the tires are ready for their attention. I turned the soil over here so you could see how dark and soft it is. For the rest of the tires a layer of newspaper with the grass and all mushed underneath. Just a couple of sheets to deter weeds and grass but allow the worms to do their magic.

  

A couple of scoops of compost will help everything get on it's way, drawing the worms, breaking down the grass and newspaper and creating a place for the roots of the new plantings. I compost directly on the ground which allows the excess water drain away and the worms to come to me. You may be able to see the couple I found in this scoop.  Then simply a layer of straw or a mix with leaves.

I'm expanding my garden this year to almost double so my compost really does have the feeling of black gold. Some of my tires that I will plant later season (tomatoes and such) I only used the newspaper and straw. They'll get compost as I get it ready, but as you can see the worms are willing to help as much as they can.

Another benefit of planting this way is that if you have very wet spring, which we often do, your plants do not set in a puddle of water. The moisture is absorbed and available to the plants but whatever extra that can't be held runs away out the bottom. This works out whether you use some kind of containment or simply layer on the ground. Regardless of being contained it is raised.

Between the fence on the left and on the right is the area that I'm going to be adding this year. My grandmother lived here before us. One great benefit is this is 30ish year old virgin ground. No chemicals, only a pretty mowed lawn. She wasn't into the garden thing. My grandfather on the other hand is the one who gave me my first experience with gardens. He had a huge garden and I would slip out into it and gather things like bell peppers and cherry tomatoes in the front of my shirt, sitting in the middle under the pole beans eating my pilfering. This is also where I learned about hybridizing. DO NOT plant your bell peppers to close to your jalapenos, they can cross and make for some really hot bells. :)

As part of my expansion I spread some boxes out and set up bales that will be my potato bed. These bales have been sitting out for about 2 months and with any luck I hope to grow cherry tomatoes in the top of them. I've done it before but with older bales and am not sure these have had enough time to age. A layer of leaves and straw in the bottom and then when I'm ready to put out the potatoes I'll just spread them evenly around the bottom. There are several schools of thought on how to plant potaoes. Eyes and slips and cuttings, depending on your space and how you plan to plant them I'm sure some work better than others. I don't do any cutting. I space them out and cover with straw and leaves by a few inchest. As they sprout and the greens start to show I add more layers. I've done this in rows where I laid out the cardboard and piled all on top. If you try that I would suggest more leaves and compost because the straw seems to dry out quickly and is difficult to keep damp.

The general rule of thumb 'round here is to plant peas on ST. Patricks' Day, but I didn't, so went out this morning to get the last of these pics together and them planted.

I soak my peas 24 hours before planting. These actually got 2 days because it rained yesterday. They'll grow up the trellis and then when the heat comes on I'll plant my cucumbers in the same spot.

For these I stirred up the compost and planted the peas directly into it and covered back with a light layer of straw. Finally getting some action in the garden is such a relief. To see a little about my planning you might like these posts, and I hope you'll come back to see more as the garden fills out.

Annual Garden

Perennial Garden

Garden Planning

Celebrating Spring!

Did you do anything to celebrate spring?

 Any excuse is a good one and a warm sunny Saturday that happens to be the first full day of spring could not be ignored. For Christmas I got this great camp cook grill but had not gotten the chance to try it out. 

I've cooked over fires a million times but have never rotisseried anything outside so this was especially fun. My Big Guy got this tire rim for me last fall as a fire pit and it works perfectly. Tall enough to block the wind and funnel the heat upward.

To go with the 3 chickens (marinated in italian dressing, salt and peppered when I put them on the spit). I chunked up eggplant, yellow squash, red onion and garlic, salt and pepper and olive oil. The heat was cooking the two on the left end faster so I put the skillet under them to catch the drippings, allowing the other continue to cook at higher heat.

I was so pleased when we carved the chickens and the skin was crispy,not burnt but more smoked, the meat smoky and moist. About 2 1/2 hours. Perfect amount of time to sit and visit without any rush. We have a young pig that we are planning to butcher soon and he will be perfect on here! I din't take a picture but for the kids sake I also hung a pan and made mac and cheese. :)