How My Garden Grows - July 4, 2006

Well I have been pretty much hanging about the house this past month not really accomplishing much but I do have a great garden to show for it.

Our House - August 2005

We bought our house just over a year ago, and the guy we bought it off of had just made a part basement out of the crawl-space. The dirt was just spread out over the yard, making it a huge sticky-clay mud pit. The house was a rental for many years before being fixed up, so the front garden area was just a huge pile of weeds. I basically started the garden from nothing.

The first thing I did was get Scott to help me dig out as many of the weeds as I could get. Then I laid down some landscape cloth to keep the weeds down and again I got Scott to help me get some rocks. Thanks goodness for the help, because I could barely lift some of the rocks we got. After adding last spring some basic plants - shrubs and perennials. We added bark mulch in the fall of 2005.

The Beginning of the Front Garden - May 2005

The Front Garden Finally receives some Rocks - July 2005

This spring I received from my grandma in Manitoba a whole box of perennial plants via the Greyhound bus. I put a lot of them in the front garden along with a few other plants I bought. I think the plan will be to keep adding a few plants each year. But it definitely helps when you can get them for free from your family.

*Thanks Grandma*

Front Garden with plants from Grandma - June 2006

Front Garden - July 2006

Front Garden - Delphiums from Grandma July 2006

Last year I also made a veggie garden beside the back deck, this year it is doing well, I have garlic, potatoes, brussel sprouts, broccoli, hot peppers, lettuce, carrots, radishes, onions, strawberries, rhubarb and raspberries.

Veggie Garden - July 2006

One huge project that Scott also helped me with was the rock retaining walls along the side of our house as I said before the dirt from the basement was just spread out all over the yard. Well it was spread so well that it covered the siding so the water just came down the dirt and right into our basement. This was a huge job because so much dirt had to be dug out, which we did by hand (silly us).

Retaining Walls in Progress - March 2006

Retaining Walls - July 2006

It looks great now. I decided to continue the rock wall idea along the side of the carport under the deck. This of course is not finished yet! I need Scott's help and well it is summer is here, Scott is busy making beer (because the busiest season for beer is the summer - it does makes sense!) and he is unavailable for rock collecting and digging dirt.

Rock wall below the deck- July 2006 - to be continued...