The "heavy lifting" part of the 2014 garden are behind us now. The seeds turned into seedlings and have moved from the basement to the garden. Actually to many gardens. There are about 6 gardens besides are own that have this years seedlings in them. I gave a number of friends seedlings to grow at their houses for the first time this year. Yes, we're spreading the garden craziness as best we can.
As I was putting a window air conditioner in one of the upstairs bedrooms today (the whole house system just doesn't quite do the upstairs bedrooms) I looked out the window and saw a very satisfying sight - an aerial view of the garden!
On the right side of the garden you can see this years water management project. We had to take down a couple cedars this year, which gave us some beautiful long straight trunks to use as a base for a water guide. Once the trunks were moved into position (fortunately they were fell very close to where we needed them), some clay (remember we really do not have soil) was piled against the trunks and that allowed grass to grow there for erosion prevention. You might be wondering how we were able to move packed clay, well with the help of our rototiller of course! A couple passes along the desire path provide some manageable material to be moved into position. It would have been virtually impossible to move the clay by hand otherwise.
The lower right non-strawed patch is one of two sunflower patches, the other is visible on the left side in front of the house and chicken coop. Yes, I said chicken coop, my wife loves having chickens. This year we planted a variety of sunflowers, from 4'6' sunburst to 15' mammoth sunflowers. I can't wait to sit by the grills with a cold one, looking out over the garden with a sunflower privacy screen to my right.
The large plant you see in front of the garden is a massive lilac bush which was planted way to close to the deck as a mothers day gift many years ago. That little 3 foot plant is now over 12' high and 6' wide. We cut this bush way back last year, which of course made it grow even faster / larger this year. Reminder to self, think carefully before planting things - they get big! In this case, far to big to be moved by hand.
As I went downstairs, I smiled at the red cherry tomatoes in the kitchen. We kept two tomatoes in the kitchen and they are covered with tomatoes, including a number almost ready to be consumed.
As I mentioned, the heavy lifting is done for this year, the backyard garden is in grow mode. That doesn't mean we are completely done with planting. This past weekend we added a small corn patch in the front yard. Not really expecting much of a yield, but I am expecting a lot of smiles as I go out front. Actually, I had fun telling a neighbor that grass I was clearing with the rototiller was going to be replaced with a corn patch. I grew up on a farm with lots of corn and I guess I've talked about growing corn so much that Margaret said "don't put the rototiller away, that part of the yard gets lots of sun and no use, make it a corn patch". So we now have a suburban corn patch int the front yard.
Oh, back to the not quite done planting. Our back deck still has couple dozen tomato plants and a number of sweet peppers. One of this weeks must do tasks is find a home for these somewhere on the property. Not a lot planting, more a pondering task of trying to figure out where they can go. Oh no, the rototiller may have to come out again!
~Dennis
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