Yardwork Shenanigans

Happy 300th Post to my blog!!!!

In the past year, Spousal Unit, Douglas, and I have been hard at work to make our yard, especially the side yard, up to our standards. We're... nowhere close--but!--we're getting closer.

The front yard with the irises in bloom.

We built a rock sifter because our soil is... well, it's clay and rocks.

The guys built it and were quite proud.

Our next step was to begin removing the diseased trees and leftover stumps from the previous ownership.

We wanted to keep this cherry tree, but the roots were rotting completely.

It left a huge hole in the yard.

You can see the white mold in the hole here that afflicted the cherry tree. We're working to improve drainage and soil quality to prevent this kind of infection.

There was an ornamental plum tree here right next to the driveway and it was also clearly diseased and cracking the driveway, so we took it out.

The corner had two rotten stumps from before we bought the house and a bunch of buried junk (all those bricks and things were buried under the stumps and around them) we've since trashed.

Spousal Unit and Douglas standing triumphantly over the huge stumps they spent three months digging out.

When we hauled out the stumps we brought some soil back to try and make up the difference but.. well, it was not nearly enough.

We discovered in the spring that we had poppies growing in the back corner of our lot.

We planted three varieties of tomatoes in the front flower bed.

We also had planted a few pineapple lily bulbs.

We had the sideyard redone to improve drainage, since the water flowed toward the house, which is definitely not good.

And we planted things! We planted spaghetti squash, zucchini, sunflowers, pumpkins, and watermelon. Most of them have sprouted by now, but few have born any kind of fruit.

Look, a watermelon!

And the first of our small orchard, a Bosc pear on the left and a Pink Lady apple tree on the right.

We've pulled out rocks to fill the drainage trench and work on taking out the tree of heaven, which is the bane of Spousal Unit's gardening life.

This pretty pink flower bush might get more friends, since I like it.

We built shelves in the back and are working on weather-proofing them before winter.

The backyard.

We let the front yard die since it's all weeds and we'll be rototilling, reseeding, and fertilizing it in spring.

And that is the current story of our yard! It's... So. Much. Work.