The rest of the tour

It's time for a tour of the front yard. Like the back yard, the front yard of the new house has some landscaping, but it's just begging for a little more personality. One twist is that the front yard is the dogs' yard. The house sits on a slope from front to back, and prior owners installed the fence and retaining wall in such a way that there is no way to get into the back yard that doesn't involve at least three steps. The dogs are too old and too big to safely go up and down steps, so the backyard is not an option. Unfortunately, the front yard isn't fenced, so we are currently having to leash the girls every time we take them outside. Fence installation has been scheduled, however, so in just a few weeks, they will be able to spend more time outside, and I can start working on the front yard landscaping.

This is the view from roughly the middle of the yard, looking toward the house.

The bed along the front of the house consists of boxwoods (stinky, stinky boxwoods), sedum, coneflowers and some prickly shrub I haven't identified. It isn't beautiful, but I have long-term plans to build a covered front porch, so I won't be messing with this bed too much.

An ornamental bed runs the full length of the driveway, and turns the corner to surround the mailbox.

Unfortunately, the ornamentals include yuccas, which I detest in any setting other than the desert, some type of low-growing evergreen, and some so-so little shrubs.

Another view. My plan for this space is to turn it into a perennial flower bed. I don't love small shrubs, and I hate those evergreens. The hostas may stay, and there are a couple perennials worth keeping, a sedum and another one I can't name, but virtually everything else will be taken out.

I have a strange compulsion to garden by color when it comes to flowers. At the old house, I had one large perennial bed devoted to orange flowers and a smaller one made up of only pink. This time around, I'm going to go a little easier on myself, and divide this area into four color zones. From back to front, it will be purple, pink, orange and yellow. I'm planning on tulips, irises, asiatic lilies, coneflowers, gallardia and maybe black-eyed Susan. That should make season-long color.

Speaking of black-eyed Susans, there is one more flower bed, between the garage and the house.

This one has more yuccas, more boxwoods, Stella d'Oro day lilies, a couple small Shasta daisies, and black-eyed Susans.

The black-eyed Susans have been absolutely beautiful. My plan for this bed is to make it an herb garden. The yuccas, boxwoods and day lilies have got to go. The other flowers will probably stay and be joined by basil, rosemary, etc. I might even put kale here. This bed is just a few steps from the door, right outside the kitchen, so it's perfectly situated for some quick snipping when one is cooking.

I certainly have my work cut out for me. Unfortunately, my plans involve a lot of destruction. I don't particularly like killing plants, but so many of the existing plants are somewhat worthless, in my opinion, and I want my flower beds to be prettier, with more personality that is reflective of my taste.

I'm getting tired just thinking about all this work, and I haven't even touched on what I want to do with the rest of the yard. It's a more long-term project, but for starters, I'm hoping to plant a couple peach trees this fall.

Starting to feel more like home

Finally got this composter set up. I've been throwing compostible kitchen scraps away all summer, and now I can finally get back to composting again. Aaaaahhhhh. So many more things to do, but at least I've made some progress.

The future of K's garden

I definitely have my work cut out for me at the new place. The previous owners were not vegetable gardeners, and the only gardens are ornamental. I'll be starting from scratch for vegetables, and things will be a little different at this place.

At this point, I'm just beginning to plan, but I do know that the garden will consist of raised beds this time around. I had already decided to transition to raised beds in the old garden before we decided to move, so I was going to be spending my fall building beds no matter what.

Here is what the place looks like now. Hopefully, next year at this time it'll be full of vegetables.

This swingset sits on a giant gravel pit edged by railroad ties. Apart from pulling out the weeds and getting rid of the swingset, I won't be doing much here. D has decided this would make a great kubb pit. Since I don't know what else it would be good for (other than possibly a chicken coop), who am I to argue?

Looking west from the kubb pit, is an open area that will certainly contain several beds. What the picture doesn't show is that, on the left of the picture is a short-but-steep slope towards the house, and to the right of the picture is a steeper slope to the fence. This flat area in between the slopes, though, is fairly level and gets lots of sun.

This is the view to the left of the picture above.

This is the west end of the yard:

The yard slopes again this direction, and this is a nice flat area. One would think this is the perfect place for all of the beds, but this is where the horseshoe pit is. The grass and weeds were so long when I took this picture, that you can hardly see the stakes, but one of the back boards is almost visible next to the trash can and pile of stumps. The pit is fairly close to that brick retaining wall on the right, so there probably is room for a few beds down here.

A closer view of the south end. That's a fire pit and a patio, but the weeds had grown so thick between the pavers that it's hard to see the patio. On top of that retaining wall is some of the landscaping, mostly day lilies (Stella d'Oro, my least favorite kind), shrubs that I haven't identified, and weeds. I did find one tomato plant up there that I believe might be Juliette. Grape-shaped tomatoes that are two to three inches long.

Leading to the patio, and mostly obscured by weeds, are stepping stones shaped like feet. Just in case bigfoot can't find his way to the fire.

A view from the deck, a few days later, after I finally mowed:

As you can see, there would be plenty of work to do, even if I wasn't planning to build beds this fall. And that's just on the outside. If this blog wasn't just about the garden, I'd show you the inside and everything I want to do there. For starters, every room needs to be painted, and pretty much every light fixture needs to be changed. I'm going to be busy here for years.

Just call me the tomato butcher

One of the last tasks before moving day was cutting down the tomato plants so I could take the tomato cages with me. If it weren't for the cages, I would've left the tomatoes for the buyer, but I didn't want to give up my nice, sturdy cages.

Tomatoes August 5th

I had already trimmed them up a bit, but it was still quite a task. The Mexican Midget was the first to go because it had the fewest green tomatoes on it.

Tomatoes August 9th

The morning of closing, I had to take down the other three.

Tomatoes August 10th

It was not fun, but I did come away with a bucket full of green and half-green tomatoes.

Several of them have already ripened at the new house.

Last photo of the garden - August 12th

So long, K's Garden #1. I will miss canning tomatoes and freezing kale this fall, and I never got to pick a squash, but I've got lots of time to plan for K's Garden #2. My head is already full of ideas.

Who's the culprit?

I saw a couple tomato theft suspects the other day. This guy spent some time lounging in the backyard, trying to look nonchalant.

Then he headed toward the tomato plants.

Maybe he caught me watching him, because then he went back to acting cool before he ran off.

Not too long after that, I saw this guy. He was sitting in the box, looking like he owned the place, but he hopped out before I could get his picture.

I haven't caught anyone red-handed, but these two sure looked guilty.

A day of destruction

Moving day is fast approaching, so I spent Saturday doing some final garden clean up. The first thing I tackled was the potato planter.

The design worked exactly as planned. After I pulled all the plants out, I unhooked the hooks and eyes, and pulled the front side right off.

In the process, I disturbed a big ant colony. I really messed up their world yesterday.

Then I unscrewed the four screws holding the rest of it together and had all the parts down in no time.

I did have supervision.

With all of the rain we've had, I half expected to find nothing but rotten potatoes. Instead, I found some really good new potatoes.

I then cut the cucumbers off the trellis. There are several plants growing along the ground, and I left those. If nothing else, they will help deter weeds.

I used up the last of my straw bale putting a layer all over the empty areas in the garden. I just don't want it to be too full of weeds when the buyer gets here.

The most unsavory thing I did all day was take down the black composter, which is where the kitchen waste went. No pictures of that process because it was messy and there were too many creepy, crawly things that I had to keep my eyes on.

A large portion of the compost was really close to done, so I buried it in the middle of the other composter. Since buyer didn't ask us to remove it, she's getting that one. In the notes I leave her, I'll let her know that it should be nothing but good soil by next spring if she leaves it alone. The black composter got hosed off and is now ready to load up.

The last thing I did was pull my garden sign out from under the cucumber vine. I'm looking forward to finding a new place for it in the next garden.

Zucchini!

My first one ever.

Up until this point, all of the little zucchinis that have formed have kind of shriveled and rotted away. This is the first one to properly mature. I made zucchini noodles with half of it (sauteed with garlic and olive oil), and the other half was shredded and frozen.

Yesterday, I noticed several more little zucchinis that look like they're going to be edible. If they aren't ready in the next week, thought, I guess buyer will get them.