Yard & Garden Updates . . . and Post #100!

Yes, this is my 100th post!  Woohoo!  Shouldn't there be some sort of celebration?  Such as eating one of the oatmeal-chocolate-chip-pecan cookies I made yesterday?

I say YES.  MMM.  (These may be some of the yummiest cookies I have ever had the pleasure of making.  And eating.  I'm just sayin'.)

I was importing some pictures from my camera, and, as often happens when I have to open iPhoto for an import, I started looking through pictures from the past several months.  I realized that there are some fun yard and garden updates that I'd like to share, so I thought I would do so while I'm feeling inspired.  Plus, it was just so nice to see pictures of green, lush growth, especially right now when it's rather drab yet (though the tulips are coming up, as are the garlic, spinach, chives, and even a rogue pea or two that must have fallen to the ground last year instead of ending up in our stomachs!).

So, a photo update, in case you need a break from philosophical ramblings.

Last May we decided to tear up some of our front lawn, since it doesn't really get used anyway, and we'd rather have native plants growing there that 1) are not lawn and 2) we don't have to water.  So on a fine day in late May, Greg and I got out our shovels and started digging up the grass.

Before (oh, how green it is!):

We dug up about a three-foot-wide strip to the south of the sidewalk along the whole front yard, and laid down some weedmat in an attempt to keep weeds and grass from coming up:

Next we bordered the strips of dirt with the rocks we've been collecting--ones we've dug up in our yard (ah, Montana glacial soil) or gathered from various roadsides and trailheads--and then layered cedar chips on top of the dirt.  Insta-landscaping!

This not only gave us less lawn to mow and water, but set off the front flowerbed beautifully:

Note the mound of dirt behind the front strip--it has now been mounded up even higher, and we've added more stones to create some curved walls and a little more privacy for our side yard.

It looks so lovely!  A very satisfying day's work.

As the summer progressed, we built up the pile of dirt--adding all the sod we were digging up, etc., and added some curving rock walls, and then covered the newly-made mound with more weedmat and cedar chips.  Here's the view from the back:

And here's the view from the front/side.  Goal for this year:  plant some native plants!  We already have some bunchgrass and sage, but we want a shade-tolerant groundcover like kinnickinnick.  Someday this will be covered with native plants!

In June, Greg worked to create a rock path from the front yard to the back yard, mostly using stones that we had dug up from our yard.  (We've even found chunks of concrete in our lawn.  I have no idea what they are from!)

Greg also fixed up the path from the sidewalk to our front door, and extended it around the front of the house to our driveway:

Greg and I have constant conversations about how much lawn to leave and how much more we can dig up for garden space.  I find that I like a little bit of lawn, so I can sprawl on a blanket and read, or set up our lawn chairs when we have friends over for dinners in the summer.  But this may be a losing battle for me; I think Greg might be happy to turn every last inch of our lawn into garden.  At any rate, last summer Greg dug up a large patch of lawn between our current garden plot and our greenhouse.  It's a space that gets a lot of sun, and I'm happy to give up big sunny patches to our garden (I prefer sitting in shady areas myself, on hot sunny days).  We didn't plant anything in it last summer, but we dug in the usual load of cow manure last fall, so we'll see how things grow this year!

And then, last fall, I got motivated to do some painting at last!  I've been wanting to paint the greenhouse door red; I'd bought deep pink primer and bright red paint, and there came a sunny weekend in September and I accomplished my goal.  Doesn't it look lovely?

Greg and I had also been wanting to install a gate between the fence and our house.  The previous owners had left an old, far-too-small metal gate, which we would set on the ground sideways in an attempt to keep out deer--which it did, for the most part, except when we forgot to set it back up after we went through it.  Let's just say that we lost some tulips, had some carrot and beet greens munched on, and had most of the leaves stripped off our fruit trees by deer on the few occasions we didn't set up the gate.  One afternoon we stopped at Home Resource and lo and behold, there were several old wooden gates available.  We guessed on the size, and got lucky, because it turned out to be a perfect fit.  I scraped off the old yellow paint and painted the gate red, too.  (Next, I'm trying to work up the inspiration to paint all our window trim red . . . we'll see how I do on that one!)

One of the most fun additions to the yard last year was a SWING!  I LOVE our swing (which we made from a leftover bit of 2x4 and some hardy rope from Ace Hardware and hung from our oak tree).  This swing brings joy to my life.  I can go out to my backyard and swing higher than the swings on most swingsets, in my pajamas and slippers and rumpled hair, and see sky and trees and mountains and our lovely little neighborhood stretching out around me.  I usually sing, too, while I'm swinging, because it just makes me so HAPPY.  If you come and visit, you can swing, too.  Britta can attest to that:

Now that I'm writing this, I am realizing just how much we did last year!  Lists can be so satisfying.  My parents bought us a picnic table for an early anniversary present (and we enjoyed a very nice dinner on it, with both sets of parents).  In the early fall, we drilled a hole in one end and bought an umbrella so we could work/write/eat outside beneath its shade.  In the picture below, you may also note that Greg appears to be working on yet another project:  a moveable hoop house for the garden, so we can extend our growing season just a bit more.

Here is the finished product!  He built a frame large enough to fit over one of our garden sections, and used PVC pipe and, I believe, some plastic we had in our garage to do the rest.  However, we were able to get some actual greenhouse plastic from farmer friends who (unfortunately) had a strong storm demolish one of their greenhouses and tear the plastic to bits . . . but those bits were still big enough to cover half our lawn, much less our little hoop house.

A view from the inside, of happy warm fall peas and spinach!

Greg also built a mini hoop house last fall, one that was a little more easy to move and could help small patches of plants.  Isn't it cute?  This picture is from today--the grass has a hint of green, and we are preparing the garden for all the new little plantlings that are currently indoors or in our greenhouse!

Two autumns ago Greg built a leaf bin.  We keep all of our leaves--they work so wonderfully as mulch in our garden, or as carbon-rich material to add to our compost.  Last autumn, Greg also built a couple of soil bins, so that we aren't reusing the same soil for things like potted tomatoes, potatoes, etc.

This spring we have been most fortunate to finally get our trees pruned.  One of our neighbors, who has lived here for 20-some years, said that he's never seen anyone pruning our trees in the time he's been around, so our poor trees were definitely past due.  The good fortune comes in that Emily, one of our neighbors across the alley, has been working with an arborist the past few months, and she asked to "practice" on our trees.  Needless to say, we enthusiastically agreed.  So she spent several days at the beginning of March pruning our three Norway maples and our oak, and they look ever so much happier and healthier now.  We'll see how they look once they start leafing out!

Of course, all those dead branches in our yard took some effort to clean up . . . but at least we have lots of firewood for our firepit!

 Because it's nice to keep in mind what we have to look forward to, I'm putting up a few pictures of garden abundance from last summer.  Our amazing pea/bean/squash fence:

Cabbage!!

Our amazing array of dried beans.  We've been soaking and eating them recently, and they are delicious. And how satisfying to eat dried beans that you actually grew!  I love it.  Some red bush beans (well, that's what they were supposed to be.  Those beans vined their way up our fence like nobody's business. I'd call them pole beans, myself . . . ):

Some yellow Hungarian beans, a gift from our friend Tina, who brought them from the organic farm she worked at in Wisconsin:

Black beans!

What our yard looked like on St. Patrick's Day (all the snow melted off by the afternoon, but what a delight to wake up to!):

What our tulips look like today:

I wonder how much longer it will be until they bloom?  I can't wait.

And now, it begins all over again, and I am so very excited.  The list of projects keeps growing, but crossing things off that list is satisfying, and it's wonderful to see the changes in our yard and garden as the years pass (we've been here almost two years:  wow).  It's hard to believe we're coming up on our third summer/garden season in this house!  At this moment we have tomato and pepper seedlings upstairs on the heat mat; onions, cabbage, and broccoli seedlings in the greenhouse; and garlic, spinach, peas, and onion sets planted in the garden.  Come on, spring!