Garden Tour

Today I thought I would share a peek of my garden.  It truly is a work in progress, so don't get too excited.  I have had such fun in spending the time to finally build a working garden.  There really is something  incredible about working outdoors and transforming a bland space into something beautiful and useful.

The back story is that last year was had a massive row of fir trees lining our yard.  They were so overgrown that they took up half of our backyard, and we encroaching onto our deck and dropping needles and sap everywhere.  Without really knowing what we were getting into, we made the decision to have them chopped down.  And immediately we regretted the decision, haha!  Our yard looked terrible and the trees looked terrible and we instantly had zero privacy.  But, since there was nothing to be done, we decided that this would be the next (2-5year) "project" we would focus on in our home.  I must say, we have come a long way in one year and I'm pretty proud of how it is shaping up.

So, without further ado, here are some pics!

First off, my incredible man built a large garden bed!  Since the grass around had already been destroyed by the trees, he covered it with landscaping fabric and then bark chips to lessen the amount of lawn to mow, and create a nice boundary around the garden.  We also put up fencing at the back where the tree stumps are, and planted ivy and clematis last fall.  They finally are really starting to grow in!

 Here's a side view of the garden.  We had an old wood shed at the back we took down, and turned that space into another garden bed too.  You can see the tree stumps look a bit mismatched, but we plan to bring them all down to fence level once we do put a real fence in.

Here's the clematis and ivy finally in bloom!  I can't wait till they wrap all around the trees!  The idea was to create a bit of a "living wall" but that will not fully manifest for quite a number of years.

I was so excited to plant a real garden, and not just small boxes and a million pots.  I started some seeds indoors, but since we've had such a mild/warm spring, a lot just went directly in the soil. It is so exciting to see the sprouts pop up out of the ground, seemingly overnight.  This was all planted only 3 weeks ago, and look how it is doing already.   My garden this year includes: carrots, kale, spinach, lettuce, sugar snap peas, pole beans, and a few red peppers (don't worry, I haven't thinned anything out yet, so they will have more space to grow when I do).

We also have some tomatoes, onions, potatoes and zuchinni in the corner lot.  In the foreground you see a beautiful lilac bush that hasn't flowered in a few years, but I think it will again.  We transplanted it from a large wood pot this year, and I think once it's settled in, it will come back to full life again.

Here's the arial view looking down.  I just cleared out the little path of rocks on the right.  It was all filled with weeds and covered with old pine needles.  It's definitely coming along.  Do you see my little digging helper too?

The little steps up lead to our storage shed and a side yard full of rocks and weeds that still needs to be dealt with.  That's a project for another day (or month, or year!).  Right now, I'm working on a little sitting space because this area is shaded in the afternoon so it's nice to escape the heat of the sun.  

 My last little project is creating a small potting bench to keep some of my gardening supplies.  This isn't at all what I pictured and it's just thrown together, but it will be the start of my inspiration.  I also hope to create a little "mud pie" kitchen for my boys if I can get around to it.  I just love, love, love being able to spend so much time outside!

So, there you have it!  My garden work in progress.  Thanks for coming along for the tour.  I'll keep you posted on how it's shaping up!  I really can't wait to enjoy all the bounty from the land!