The Best of Spring


Eating out on the porch, admiring the view

Evening light

Spring clouds

Garden beds

Arboretum view


Watering

Color

Blooming things!

Phil napping while attending a district wide meeting.  I have to say, the meeting, which I was listening in on since I was cleaning the kitchen and getting dinner in the crockpot, sounded a lot like a self help meeting.  

Watching F-14's fly overhead

This will be beautiful, once we get it finished!

Picking up our new goats

Brighton loving on this new baby (this one will be living at cousin's house).

Welcome Eleanore and Iris, mom and daughter both due to have babies at the end of July.  I wanted to add 2 more baby goats...somehow we ended up with 2 pregnant moms LOL.  

Getting to know each other.

Snakes in trees

I moved dirt...about 7 hours worth, in preparation for this spot becoming a, retaining wall, mulched in pathway, and leveled spot for Fall veggies. 

There were times when it rained on me and I was freezing.

Phil worked to get the sod dug out and fresh dirt filled in to make this bed my medicinal herbal garden bed.



This is where the 7 hour dirt pile was located.

All the sod out and ready for leveling, the herbal bed is planted with what I have (I ordered seed...a month ago.)


Gabrielle's seed strewn flower garden.  

Retaining wall up, and the rest of Gabrielle's flowers all neat in a row. 

Leveled and read for planting.

Beautiful new retaining wall and mulched in pathway.

All day Monday's project!  We had to get a bit creative since I didn't want to have the sod dug out because it would lower the space too much and we don't have/can't afford refilling it up with dirt.  I also didn't want to use up the last of the manure pile just for in between rows.  I had Phil rototill the sod and the kids helped to rake up as much of the roots as possible.  Then we make dirt mounds for a pumpkin and melon patch.  The kids and Phil put down layers of cardboard (I have been saving boxes to use as weed barriers) and I mowed so there would be grass clippings to pile on top of the cardboard.  We will continue to add lots of clippings as I mow.  Hopefully, it will keep down the majority of the weeds and next spring it can all be rototilled in.



So....We have a raised bed section with the earliest of the Spring plants cauliflower, broccoli, kale, kohlrabi), lettuce, radishes, carrots, peas, onions.  We have Gabrielle's flower garden, sweet peas, and nasturtiums.  We have a medicinal herbal garden, wine barrels with culinary herbs, and a big potato tower.  We have tomatoes and bush beans.  We have a raspberry patch and a raised bed with blueberry bushes.  The new garden space has pole beans, pickling cucumbers, and lots of pumpkins and melons. 

Still to finish is the other section of the medicinal herb garden (lots of sod to dig out and dirt to fill in).  Another blueberry raised bed.  A third raised bed for gooseberries and currents.  And one more narrow section that currently has another dirt pile to move, sod, and leftover mulch that we had dumped last year.  We have the tractor path down the middle that is an uneven mess.  Phil has to bury the water lines before we can tackle that.  Then, we just need to make a mulched pathway around the entire garden and set up watering on everything.

I want to plan corn, peppers, and zucchini but I am currently only have room for either the corn or the peppers and zucchini.  I need to get that last section finished. 

Phil suggested that we have a small garden this year so as not to add so much extra work....now we have a garden plot that is nearly as big as the lot that we lived on in Silverton.  Oops!


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