Backyard Make Over - Heading for that Edible Landscape

Do you ever feel like you are pouring money down the drain as you water bushes in your yard that give you nothing but a bit of greenery?  I do. 

And so I finally called it quits with the last monster water bill. 

 

Why am I doing this? 

 

So I saw in my last SJ Master Gardeners newsletter that a class was coming up on planting edibles in your landscaping, hmmmm, sounds interesting. 

If it must be green then why not make it pay for it's water with some food.  I like it. 

 

So with a little convincing of my chief destroyer, Jeffery, we started the transformation. 

 

First out - our roses :(  First the peace rose that had been there for 20 + years (gave it to a freecycler in town) and then the Mr. Lincoln (which I potted and put back in later in a different spot, I mean you can only push me so far besides roses have vitamin C) then went the weird purple rose which really didn't do anything for my yard and always looked a bit leggy (gave that to a garden club member).  

 

 

And for the final assault, the monster, The Bird of Paradise, which had grown sooooo large that you could no longer put your arms around the base. We planned on pulling it out in a large hunk and then dividing in amongst friends. Four hours later we were using power tools.

 

 

We put a large piece of plywood over the pond and a tarp to keep out the dirt.

See the arbor over his head - that holds our grapes and gives us a screen from neighbors.
 

 

My Honey with one of his favorite tools. A real GQ pose :)

and wearing his Relay Shirt (oooh, that's going to take some serious cleaning to be white again).

 

So out with the bad stuff and in with the good.

 

In the roses place we put a pomegranate, my husband's a Vitamix, smoothie lover so he really wanted one.  Check.  Got it.

 

Next blueberries - in pots.  I had seen this on Pinterest and really loved the idea of growing blueberries in pots.  That way I would be able to get something with a flash of color (the pots) and food too.  You have to have 2 - something about cross pollination.

  

 

Then a sink. You read right - a flippin' kitchen sink. With dual bowls :)  One of the problems when you are a crazy, recycler gardener is that people call you up with the weirdest items that they are getting rid of. 

 

In case you aren't aware of it Mint is invasive and what better way to corral it than in a sink.  I planted regular mint in one side and chocolate mint and parsley on the other side.  Out looking for plates now.  Wait for it :)  Since it is a sink we definitely need plates.

The fence was up to make sure that Pippa didn't trample things until they were established.  Nothing like a dog to wreak destruction after all your hard work.

Happy Gardening

 

Yard Tweaking Going On

 

Just thought I'd throw a couple of things that I have been working on in here. 

 

 

No, It's not finished.  That's why there are spaces.  My Son finally gave me his contribution the other night so I am working on it.  Freedonia (you have to be a Marx Bros fan to understand that one) and I'm doing Yosemite since when I escape that is usually where I end up.  I think there will be space for one more sign after that.  Still no clue as to what that will be.

 

I bought the boards at Home Depot.  They have hardwood boards in 4" x whatever length you like sizes. Then I used my wood burner and burnt them.  The lettering came from my MS Word program -I just printed them as huge as I could.   Used an old method on transfer -  rubbed my pencil on the back of the paper and then traced the words with a pen.  Leaves an impression and a bit of the carbon from the pencil behind.  When I was done I had my Husband cut the arrow points in then I washed the signs with different colors (a bit of water and paint) and sprayed them with a sealer after I put them up. 

 

Put only one screw in the sign into the pole so I could tweak them on different slants.  I may have to add an additional screw later as the birds who land on the signs, so they can get in the bird bath in front, are a bit on the plump side and some of the signs end up facing the ground by the end of the day.  Seriously need diets for the birds.

 

Just a note here on the bird bath in front of the sign - I found a HUGE pot and put that by the sign, filled it with dirt and then put another pot inside that was the exact size of my bird bath topper.  Filled around it with dirt and put in some 'tunias.    The pot that holds the bird bath is higher than the original pot so that when I lift off the bird bath to clean it (which I obviously didn't do before this picture) I don't damage the flowers around it.

 

I wish I'd saved the before picture for the chair.  It had yellow and orange plaid on the seat and on the back.   I paid a whole $5 for it at a local garage sale. The rectangle that has the flowers painted on it was the original back and was stapled under the fabric.  I just cleaned it up and painted some bright white daisies on it.  Originally I took the whole puppy apart, had my husband put a screen from the front to the back to hold the cocoa form and sprayed it blue (black was too strong).  

I bought two of the cocoa forms since there wasn't one that would fit my strange shape and kind of mushed (a gardening term :P ) into place .  Since I knew that this would spend a lot of time in the shade I put in coleus, a red one and a variegated one.  The only thing I would have done differently would be to add the additional lining of plastic inside to help retain the water. 

 

Happy Gardening

Beans

I have never had great success with beans.  I don't know why.  I have tried but what I have gotten from my efforts wouldn't even serve my family of 4 one meal. 
Stupid.
I hate putting major effort into something (not to mention money and water) and not get something out of it.

 

 

So this year I decided to over kill on the beans.

 I started back in April and put beans in my garden window to get an early start. I used last years empty containers from my annuals, a simple planting mix and

Kentucky Pole Beans seeds, um, beans, um, seeds, you get the idea.

Anyway they came up so fast that I was concerned that it wouldn't be warm enough in the garden for them before they out grew the containers. You can see next to them by comparison my heirloom tomatoes that were barely up.

 

 

On to garden prep. I am a 'square footer'. Maybe there is a club for people like me or an institution :) But because I am a 'square footer' my prep is easier that it has been for years. I used to be dragging out the rototiller at this point. But this year I started with putting new compost over the entire bed and working it in. Added a couple of extra squares (planting potatoes in those) and an old garden swing to use for my stringing up the beans.

I love recycling stuff.

 And yup, that's me in the picture

(shades of peter pan, just wish I could lose my shadow for the pictures).

 

 

More of me in the picture - Also cleaned up the planting bed and put in the beans. I planted them with a mix of bone meal/Epsom salts/crushed aspirin/egg shells to give them a boost right off the bat. This was their first day out in the garden by themselves.

'Sleep well little beans'  

See in the back my lettuce/spinach/chard box still going strong.

Just a note here that the box that the beans are going in is one of my part shade boxes. I have a huge apricot tree in the middle of my garden (poor planning but really no where else I could put the planting boxes). So this area of the garden gets only 4 - 5 hours of sun per day. The corner box where the lettuce/spinach/chard is gets maybe 3 hours which is great for them.

They are totally not sun worshipers.

 

 

 

 

Okay so not so good of a shot but you can see the progress. I ran the string around the back bar of the swing and then over the top and then looped it under the grid work for the square foot garden. That's Pippa butt in the picture. My Lab-Hound mix. She's barking at Taco, the chi-weiner, next door.

Are you allowed to say butt on a blog? Butt.

 

 

 More beans. And yes I did put more bean seeds in the front about 2 weeks ago once the one's in the back got rolling. Some 'purple beans' and a breed called 'rattlesnakes'. I'm experimenting.

If I don't get beans this year then I'm going to shoot myself.

Maybe.

The old swing works pretty darn good.  See in the upper left hand corner that blue bottle hanging there.  That's bug spray.  When the little buggers are eating my beans I have recourse at hand. 

'Die you bugs'.

So far I haven't had any bug problems but I am prepared :)

 

I've been fertilizing every two weeks with fish emulsion.

Makes everything stink but doesn't burn my plants.  They seem to be loving it. 

Biggest challenge is Pippa thinks it smells wonderful and tries to eat my dirt or roll in the plants. 

She is now exiled from the garden.

 

 

Just a couple of shots of my potato box hiding in the back.

 

 

Happy Gardening