Another round of planting

We did another round of planting and shifting thing around today. Sadly, I have a cold and it probably wasn't the most intelligent thing to do, but I had the day off and it needed to get done. :)

Tali helped a bit and Shana - also sick - tackled some of the items in the front yard.

We purchased a replacement tomato plant for the lost plant we had and several other additions for the planter box and back side garden.

We have buckwheat planted here and there as filler mulch. I guess the idea is that it grows, then you cut it down to the ground and use it as mulch. We'll see if it works.

We have two types of melons planted.  Uchiki Kuri melons.

And Hokkori

 We're trying to get things in an order so that everything is with it's on type of plant. Lettuces, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes....all with each other. I was thinking that we'd mix them more, but we kept them together for the most part.

Talia really likes helping in moderation. :)  She has a short attention span for this, but manages to enjoy it while she does it.

We did an additional box of strawberries. We're hoping we can get more going this year.

So, this is the current back yard lineup. 

Again, this round of planting is partly experimentation. We'll see what does well where, then repeat the process next year based on our findings.

The front garden

A drawing by my 4 year old.

Me in the garden with flowers.

As I write that, I have misty eyes. :)

The front garden is getting to be a little more tame, which is nice. We went through over the end of last season and the start of this one and did heavy weeding and trimming. I still need to run water tubes from our drip spouts - that'll be a great help with the drought. It's just a matter of running them out, then covering them with dirt. This will make the whole of it look better and might help to prevent what's happening now - them getting ripped up and out every time weeding is done! heh

My 4 year old INSISTS that the red and white flowers below are honeysuckle. I've looked and I can't determine what it is, but don't think it's honeysuckle. :)

Our purple Salvia has new red Salvia to keep it company. No, we won't be ingesting any of it.

The twisted root plant (center below) is a image of it's former self, but is actually struggling back with more and more leaves and flowers! Whew! I'm happy about this - I really liked it and was sad to see it hacked up. It's fun to see it come back like this.

Talia's little red and yellow plant pot is booming.

Little buggies - possibly grasshoppers? No idea. They love the roses. There are not many, so I let them hang around.

This plant that Seneca is taking care of here was transplanted from the front. It was getting too much sun up there and has a bit more shade now that it's part of Talia and Seneca's Fairy Garden! :) Must be the fairies taking care of it. :)

Dirt 'N' Plants

While the month keeps on kicking my arse in various ways, I seek comfort and calm in dealing with our garden and plants. :)  Something about taking care of a living thing that doesn't scream at you is rather nice. hehehehe 

We got our shipment of dirt in and....wow...it was a lot of dirt. Shana rounded up and it ended up being a rather large pile. We have ideas and we're going to end up using it eventually, but it created some interesting situations for us to deal with for sure.



Storing the dirt was one thing. We had to put it somewhere, so I managed to get a spot that was out of the way. But, I need to roll back in when the spoke clears and pull it away from the fence so it doesn't damage it over time. I just had to get it out of the driveway! heheheh

The kids love helping!

Shana looked into SQUARE FOOT GARDENING and we talked it through and thought that it would be a good idea for us. Basically, there are sites that call out how many plants you need per square foot for good growing conditions. 

http://squarefootgardening.org/square-foot-gardening-method

It really made sense to us, so we went for it and came up with a plan. 

Not our final, but close :)

Once we had things laid out, we headed to EAST BAY NURSERY and made our purchases. We had to think through the current water crisis as well - leaning away from items that needed a lot of water. We're going to do another round of conditioning where we use items to help keep the water in the soil as much as possible.

We popped the plants in their spots and started shifting things around until the plan seemed right, then we planted them and set them in.

Super happy about this. I've made some mistakes along the way for sure :::grin:::, but there's nothing like hanging out in the yards with the kids. It's a true, family based activity that also helps the overall feel of the house itself. I love it.

I'm going to document the goings on in the front later. The back is shaping up nicely. Our apple tree has finally started to bloom, but I'm not sure we'll get the amount of apples we got last year. We did purchase the same bug boxes and I'll spray with the natural oil to keep the pests down, but we might not have the same volume.

We've invited my brother-in-law up to help with the olives this year so they don't "die on the vine" like last year. He's a "foodie" and enjoys various food processes, so he'll take on the olives and maybe even our figs. Very cool.

And we're seeing good progress on our blood oranges! (...so far...)   It looks like pampering them worked - we're getting many more possible fruit buds this year!

A lovely moment of zen, looking at all of these photos and making future garden plans. Much needed. :)  If you're feeling a bit burnt, maybe you should run down to the local nursery and snag a plant or two to take care of. It might do you some good! :)

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A busy March and April

A photo overview of the progress of MARCH and APRIL.  In order....kinda...  :)

The plan of action

All the wood and supplies...into the Yaris. :)

Time to dig!

Fairy garden started.

We're going to plant a climbing vine in the base of the tree.

A little patio space

Tomato bed

Super helpers

Another HOME DEPOT run - sadly, I had one item too much

Bring on the DIRT!

So....the dirt arrived....

...a LOT of dirt. 

I spent hours shoveling dirt and moving it to the back. Well worth it - it's awesome dirt and I can't wait to get plants into it. But....yeah...it was a lot of dirt!

I filled the box and we had another box full left...that I'm still moving to the back yard. heheheh

Shana said, "Maybe we should build another box?" This sent me thinking about buying more wood for another box, then having too much wood left, so we buy more dirt....   :)

I started plotting out the Fairy Garden area as well. Talia and Seneca and interested in it, but not part of it yet fully. We'll see how it goes in the future. They might be more into it when there's more stuff for them to play with. 

Next step....plants!