When we moved into our current house three years ago, we said goodbye to our big beautiful cheaper than a therapist vegetable garden. Our new house came with beautiful landscaping in the front, a big deck in the back with a pergola, a pond & waterfall, but there was this funky piece of lawn on the west side of the house. It sat between two six-foot privacy wing fences - one from the front wall of our house to the edge of the property, and the other from the back wall of our house to the edge of the property. It was sort of a head-scratcher as to what the purpose of this little manicured, landscaped area was for. We decided to make the back wing fence into a picket fence (*poof*) and turn the green lawn into a vegetable garden (*blam*). So this is how it looks in the winter:
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| The sleeping garden |
As soon as the holidays are over the seed companies have the most perfect timing by keeping our mailbox full of seed catalogs so I can start dreaming of next season's garden. In the meantime I feed the critters in the yard.
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| One of our well-fed fat squirrels |
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| Check out this Coopers' Hawk ~ probably waiting for a little bird to come to that feeder... |
- Potatoes
- Tomatoes
- Peppers - bell & hot
- Bush beans
- Garlic
- Onions
- Carrots
- Radishes
- Kale
- Dry beans (first time trying this) - both pole & bush varieties
- Zucchini
- Snap peas
- Cucumbers
- Raspberries (I want to add more - shhh don't tell my hubby)
- Melons
- Th-th-that's all folks
I usually grow lots of winter squash like spaghetti and acorn and butternut but decided this year to skip a year to rotate squash out of the garden so we don't get squash-loving bugs. I'll have the melons and cucs (those are squash cousins) and zucchini in another area of our yard.
We also have two pear trees and two apple trees. For the first two years, we grew lots of apples but the bugs and the squirrels got them. The first year we saw no fruit on the pear trees. The people who owned the house before us told us that the other two trees were peach trees, so imagine our surprise when a handful of pears grew the second year! Surprise! Late frosts must have killed the pear flower buds in those first two years. Last year we got smart and sprayed for bugs, and got a huge crop of pears. Some of you may remember my post that included the munchkins eating pears. For some reason we didn't get any apples last year, but I learned that skipping a year can happen in fruit-world. We'll spray again this year for sure, and wait and see if it is a pear-year or an apple-year at our house.
I'm heading outside to cut back the perennials now. Feeling the need to get my hands dirty :o)
(((hugs))),
chris
For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13
