Our back garden is pretty hopeless right now.
When we bought this house we knew that we'd have to have the massive tree in our backyard taken down sooner rather than later. It was a gorgeous, healthy tree, but it was growing about ten feet from the back corner of our house—and even closer to the neighbor's house!—and it was already beginning to cause problems.
Our backyard has so much more light with the tree down. We've gone from having one or two spots of full sun to an entire yard that is sunny and bright for most of the day. Once we get all this wood cleared away, it will be a great place for a garden.
(If we ever get all this wood cleared away. I have suggested renting a log splitter, but for some reason George wants to do it the old-fashioned way. The good news is that we'll have a ton of firewood next winter, presuming he's finished splitting it all by then...)
In the meantime, my starts (and the few tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, etc. I bought at the garden store because I'm not convinced my starts are going to do well) are waiting to be planted. Hopefully we will get them in the ground in the next week or so...
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Our front garden, on the other hand, is coming together beautifully.
We are planting out our entire front yard, which is turning out to be an undertaking and a half—again, it could be made easier by renting power equipment, but that involves renting a truck and that just seems like too much trouble. (Besides, the sweat equity is good exercise.)
I spent most of last week working on the small strip of yard to the right of our front walk. George used a shovel to loosen the sod & then I removed it all by hand, preserving as much of the soil as I could.
We didn't bother to take up the sod underneath the herb garden; since we weren't planting that directly in the ground I used newspaper to sheet mulch and then just built the spiral over it. Then, with the spiral in place, I planted out the rest of the area, taking care to leave enough space around the spiral to walk. (I'll put some sort of stepping-stone walkway in at some point, when I find stones that will work for it.)
Almost everything in our front garden is edible or medicinal (or both). In the spiral I planted my cooking herbs—rosemary, dill, oregano, thyme, basil, sage, tarragon, fennel, chives, parsley, coriander, and mint—as well as chamomile, calendula, and feverfew. In the surrounding area are echinacea, lady's mantle, yarrow, hollyhock, lemon balm, vervain, and lavender. And, of course, Julia and Asher's little garden bunnies, given to them by our neighbors and lovingly placed next to our front walk to greet visitors!
Now, to wait—not so patiently, I must confess—for it to fill in and be as beautiful in reality as it is in my mind...
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How does your garden grow?
