Whew! I didn’t think it would ever look like our yard was going to come together. I’ve been working on it for two years and it looked like I’d done almost nothing, but this year, year three, things are finally starting to come together.
Plants are maturing, looking really stunning this year; our permanent crop plants are producing heavily; we got most of the fruit trees in for our little orchard. So the yard finally doesn’t look like an orphan.
An asiatic lily, purchased after it had bloomed last summer, rewards me with many blossoms this year.
There are some notable exceptions. One of the biggest is a large autumn olive almost in front of the door. We planned to move it this spring, but only got to the maple tree before it got too hot. So, it’s earmarked for a move immediately after the temperatures begin to cool this fall.
All my seedlings are looking terrific this year. Last year, almost from the get-go, my vegetable garden looked terrible. None of the plants produced much; my summer squash only produced male blossoms; the tomatoes got early blight, so even though they produced some tomatoes, they looked terrible.
My decision to not expand, until I have what’s already in the ground under control, was a good one. Oh, I’ll tell you I’ve been tempted sometimes to start the new perennial garden I want out front, or to start new rows for the blackberries and marionberries, but I’m holding off.
So far, with the help of my husband, we’ve managed to build a new, easily removed structure around the blueberries. This is keeping the birds at bay. Of course they holler at us every time we go outside. They are not happy that they can’t munch on all the berries before we get any.
We got 10 more fruit trees planted and just this weekend started to put down weed barrier around them and the berry bushes.
I managed to get several of the vegetable beds reworked with more amendments and the plants are doing terrific because of it.
Last we’ve started work on building a roof over the back deck, so we can sit outside and not get baked. It faces mostly south and is unbearably hot even in the early morning, so a roof will help cool it down so we can enjoy breakfast outside.
The herb garden is almost finished. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll bring over the loads of compost to fill it up and then this weekend we’ll work on the deck and I’ll move the herbs to their new home. Just in time to till up where they were and put in the last of the summer seeds.
Wish I’d taken before and after pictures, but I’ve been so busy just trying to keep ahead of everything I didn’t. From this point on we can at least show you what we’ve done, maybe even how to do it yourself.
So our little Avalon is finally starting to come together.
