Jun
2009
I’m back… planting all done… time to take it easy?
June 17th, 2009 at 01:53 pm by Shari Thomas in Around the Farm, Dogs, garden
Daisy, just waiting for more mischief.
What a month!
First we get a new puppy, who’s taken a fair amount of our time, then it was time to plant our garden. After that… time to sit and reflect on just how much more we’ve done this year than last.
Now it’s down to weeding, watering and defending against the unseen pest who insist on using our garden for their nightly banquets. From chislers (a cross between a prairie dog and a gopher) to some kind of ground-dwelling bug, to mice and rabbits… it’s a never ending battle.
Puppy progress… She’s nearly house-broken. I say nearly because we still must be very vigilant to keep her from making puddles in the house if we don’t get a door open fast enough. She’s doing exceptionally well at “sit” and “come”. We’ve yet to start on “stay” and “down”.
She’s still terrorizing the big dogs, although Sarah (my Finnish Spitz) has her number. One day last week, Sarah took Daisy the puppy to “serious school”. We could hear the yelps. Ever since then, Daisy shows repsect. Kiki, our German Shepherd wuss is still afraid of Daisy. She’ s progressing to a fierce growl when the puppy ventures too close. Of course, Daisy considers her “fair game” whenever possible.
What did we plant?
Front walkway before overhaul
Mom standing at the end of our new look walkway
After our raised beds were done, we tackled a huge project… re-do the two beds bordering the front walkway. It took a couple of weeks, but the result is beautiful. We dug out all the old lava rock, ripped up the plastic weed barrier, dug down 20 inches and sifted every bit of dirt back into the beds. After that, we planted boxwoods, hot poker plants, and geraniums. The boxes are lined on the back with railroad ties we removed from an old barn last fall. We added a short white fence for accent and called it good.
Freshly planted large garden
Well, in our 30 x 60 garden, we’ve got beans coming up, tomato plants, eggplant, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, carrots, radishes, assorted bell peppers, a couple kinds of cucumbers, some summer squash, melons, shallots, garlic, and decorative indian corn.
We also have a 32 x 12 corn patch.
Some of our raised beds in the front yard
Mom gave me the greenhouse so I’ve filled it with herbs. I’ve planted onion chives, Chinese garlic chives, thyme, oregano, sage, rosemary, dill, scallions, hot peppers, italian parsely, genovese basil, cilantro and summer savory.
So far, we’ve lost half the melons, cucumbers and squash to some kind of pest. They’ve also been munching in the sweet corn. Something has climbed into the herb boxes and eaten all the summer savory and part of my cilantro.
See the woodpile?
Mom's new planter
New addition to chicken coop
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May
2009
More yard work, setting up the patios
May 16th, 2009 at 07:25 pm by Shari Thomas in Around the Farm, New Life, WeatherToday, we moved closer to our “summer living” with still more yard work and the setting up of our summer patios. Yes, that’s two patios.
I promise, tomorrow I’ll get pictures. Today we had a stiff breeze from nearly sunrise, so we concentrated entirely on the tasks before us.
We did more work on the major project, the rebuilding of the front walkway by adding railroad ties to the area between the yard and the future planting area for our entry hedge. We also added a nice top-dressing of compost.
Next week we’ll do the other side of the walk way. All the gravel is being added to the circular drive. That cuts the bill a bit for more gravel out there.
We also used the Mantis in “edger mode” to trim back the grass from all the concrete “dividers”. That’s a project that has been on our radar for over two years.
The glass tables and chairs emerged from the garage and were set up at our kitchen door patio, and also at our “lower patio”. That one is under the elm trees and overlooks the big garden, the chicken coop, the sheep, the cows, and the horses.
We think there was some kind of a shop that was torn down, as we’ve moved more than enough shingles, old wood, electrical wire, and even car parts from the area. This is all on a big concrete pad, approximately 30 x 15.
What’s really nice, is now we can walk around in the garage again, something Mom really appreciates.
Ok, tomorrow, I promise a gallery of what we looked like in Aug 2005 when Bev and Cindy first got here. Remember they bought this place “sight unseen”. Bev’s cousins had seen it and they’re first comments were, “If we were 20 years younger, you wouldn’t get to buy this. It would be ours.”
Buy me a beer and I'll write more posts more often.
