Seedy Saturday - A Year in My Garden

Yes.

2024 (fingers crossed) will be 'The Year of the Garden'!

The heap of bricks which has been sitting in the front yard for almost a year now, is actually 'moving' along. While the layout above is not the final plan, I have started. Earlier this week I cut down and pulled out 'stuff' in the front beds. Things like the 8-10 foot balloon milkweed stalks. And the huge weeds. 

Anyway...

I want to have this pathway in the ground by 01 February. I've put a deadline on myself. The width is marked out. And with rain today (Saturday) and again on Tuesday, I should be able to dig out the layer of mostly clay to lay the bricks. I am still pondering over including the pavers, especially since I got about a dozen from my neighbor before she moved. 

Actually, I may make this pathway all bricks and use the pavers for a walkway on the other side of the house. Time will tell. 

But I have some cardboard I am going to lay down to help stop weeds. And a bag of sand, and I'll go get some more, to put over the cardboard to help level the bricks to make them at least semi-level. Once the pathway is in, I will get some potting soil (or garden soil) and pour it over the top of the bricks and sweep it into the holes. 

In the meantime, I am starting some pennyroyal and creeping thyme to plant on the pathway. I want to get my hands on some Corsican Mint to add to the mix. I think it will be lovely to have a pathway with patches of mints and thyme. 

Now to shame myself and being up front about the condition of my garden. Especially when I compare my yard to those of some friends. I have to stop and tell myself I have only been in the yard for a couple of years now and they have been in their yards far longer. (Comparisionism is something I am very guilty of, not only in the garden, but in other areas too.)

A 'tour' of my yard on the 1st of January...

This is a 'corner' of the house which is a south-west facing corner. And very much on a slope. Hiding behind the chair (which needs to be moved back to the front porch) are some windows which I will turn into a cold frame in the garden. Also, by the corner of the house, next to the chair and windows, is an olive tree!

I planted it out over a year ago. This is the 2nd winter for it in my yard. It was one of three and the other two haven't done very well. In fact, I think one is definitely no longer there. However, 'Olive Oil' has gone from about 12 inches when I planted it, to about 3 feet tall. We have had several below zero nights and it is hanging in there. I think being in a protected corner with black bricks, it is doing well. Will I get olives anytime soon? Only time will tell. 

This is the 'mess' across the veggie garden. Lots of chores to do there. I tell myself I am leaving some of the vines and stalks to shelter wildlife during the winter. HAHAHA!

Anyway..

The hog wire arches was a bust last summer. I will go ahead and invest in cattle panels this year - 3 or 4  to make arches. I have several melons and squashes, along with beans, I want to grow on arches. Then I will use the hog wire, along with some of the bamboo I have to make a fence around the garden. Slider will not like me fencing off the garden, but it will keep his big feet out of it.

I did manage to get the raspberry and blackberry bushes pruned. They are along the back fence. Hopefully, I pruned correctly and have a good crop of berries this year. 

Another view near the back corner and the olive tree. My bamboo teepee needs to be more securely 'planted', especially since I planted a patch of tulips in the center. I have erected the teepee and added a layer of compost on top of the bulbs where the layer of soil (which wasn't deep enough) washed away in the rain. 

I was so excited when I dug into one side of my compost heap and I had some fairly nice compost. While it is not a 'hot' pile, it has been doing what it is supposed to do, slowly, but surely. And it smelled so 'compost-ie' too! I will, over the next few weeks, move the rest of the compost to the veggie garden in preparation for a new year of growing. 

Yeah...the front yard...

What a mess!

This faces the herb garden, which needs some reorganizing and revamping. And on the left, where there are currently 4 baby peonies, will have Peony 'Christine' and Peony 'Costco' moved into the bed. My plan is to make this a peony/dahlia bed. There are several new varieties of dahlia I am starting from seed this year (as in a few days). I also want to buy a few tubers of some of the larger flowered dahlias this spring. 

There will also be a pathway from the main path to the herb garden and probably from the herb garden toward the front of the yard. In front of the peony bed is a Toka plum tree planted last spring. It is already starting to have swelling buds. The two peach and two apple trees around the yard are also starting to 'look good'. While I am not holding out for fruit this year, I can hope can't I?

Another 'tree' thing is I will be hopefully planting a couple more fruit trees in the yard. I am studying up on 'backyard orchard culture'. I don't want huge trees, but will be pruning the trees so they are only 6-7 feet tall, max. This way I can easily harvest from the tree, but I can plant trees closer together. A bonus for my small yard. 

The white raised bed will have a 'ring' of pavers around it. I am going to put my Japanese maple in the raised bed and then flowers around the tree. And I'll have something trailing coming out of the bed with the little maple tree. 

In the center, I will expand the flower bed somewhat. I will need to thin out some rudbeckia and plant it elsewhere. Along the side fence are 4 elderberry bushes I got from a friend. I am hoping they make it through the winter (I'm a believer in survival of the fittest) and have berries to harvest this year to make my own syrup. 

This is the shadier side of the house. It gets morning sunshine. My banana forest is along the fence line and I would like something down this side. At the bottom is my compost heap which I need to expand by one more bin (I currently have 2), which means moving a couple of little blueberry bushes. I think I will move these over to the end of the veggie garden, along the fence I will be putting up.

At the very back are two Nanking Cherry bushes. One looks really good. I am considering putting in a grapevine or two in the space between the compost heap and the bananas. 

So lots of 'chores' and ideas for the yard this coming yard. Hopefully, I will have a full journal of my 'Year in the Garden' by this time next year. But for now, with the rain, it's moving a couple of things around in the kitchen area to put up my little greenhouse and start some seeds!