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Monday, June 19, 2017

What on earth have I been doing?

From the looks of the blog, nothing. Luckily that isn't true. I have been pretty busy, and the plants are growing along fine in spite of me.

So what has happened since I last posted?

1. I transplanted some "ditch lilies" from my mom's garden to my yard. They're part of the long term plan for less mowing.

Before
After


It got hot after I planted them, and they suffered. I finally trimmed them up a bit, which I should've done right away, and they have so far survived.


I won't declare victory until next year. This photo illustrates why not mowing is the end goal for this part of the yard:


Much too steep.

2. I picked some radishes...


and decided to try roasting them.


3. I got some grass started on "the pit".

June 18, 2017
For reference, this is what it looked like when we moved in.

August 2015
We got rid of the swing set right away, and the area has been an empty gravel pit ever since. Well, empty except for the weeds that grew all over it last year.

One of our many projects resulted in extra fill dirt, so we spread it over top of the gravel.

April 14, 2017
We then added a couple yards of compost. No pictures - it was hard work and D did a lot of it while I was out of town. Then, I spread grass seed and started watering, right when the temperatures soared into the 90s. I'm pretty impressed we got as much germination as we did with those temperatures. Our temperatures have come down a little bit, so I have added more grass seed to the empty spots and will see if we can get the whole thing covered. The hope is that some kubb matches can be played there before the summer is over.

4. The entire garden is planted, and growing.



I made sure to thin the cucumber seedlings.


Only one on each side.



One of the potatoes looks sick.


Cantalope - a first!



There is even more going on, but this is long enough, so I'll save the rest for another day.