A Friend's Meal

On her sick day, my friend made this meal from the greens in my garden.

Concern for the Big Cherry Tree

Mid June

May Meal

Early May

Staying warm

After I planted the vegetable starts, I found these four windows at The Rebuilding Center for a whopping $8 total, and created my own window warmers.

A Video Overview of the Yard

No Front Lawn

On Saturday, I removed the final remnants of grass in our front lawn. In doing this, I added one more bed and mixed-in compost with the three three-foot-wide beds. I had already mixed in compost to the two big beds (which are four or five-feet wide).

The sloped portion of the front yard still has grass; I'm waiting to remove the grass until I figure-out how I want to terrace it.

Putting things in the ground

My starts of Chadwick's Cherry Tomatoes, Roma Tomatoes, Butternut Squash, and Moss Currled Parsley are doing mostly well. I've also purchased Argula and Meslun lettuce, kale, shallot, oregano, broccoli, and cauliflower starts.

The backyard has grass

Here's a view of my backyard. I moved the grass from the front yard to the backyard. As you can tell, much of the backyard lacked grass - and much of it still does. I probably have about 100 square feet of additional grass to move, so hopefully the backyard will look even better soon.

Grave of dirt: future pea patch

Along the south side of the house, I turned over the sod and laid two 4' x 4' boards across the area in an effort to kill the grass. Although we don't have a yard on the south side, we do have a small sliver of land, just perfect for planting some beans and soaking-up the heat off the house.

Monday evening I dugout the sod, dug out an additional 20" in depth, and then loosened the soil beneath. For a moment, it looked like a shallow grave. I then put the dead sod back in the hole first, followed by the cleaner soil.

As night fell, I planted 12 pole beans into the newly softened soil. I had grown the pole beans indoors; most were about 6" in height with two fully grown leaves.

Front nearing completion

On Sunday, I managed to finish off the second 5'x10' and 2'x10' raised beds. Took a little over 5 hours to do this properly.

Mounds of dirt form

On February 14, I dug out part of the front lawn's south slope, which will eventually become an herb and flower garden. However, I look the wood to properly terrace this section, so until I get those materials, I'm going to hold tight. Besides, most annual herbs shouldn't be planted until April, and perennials in July.

On February 20, I dug out half of the flat portion of the front yard and created the first 5' x 10' raised bed (I haven't actually measured the size). By digging the paths a little deeper, I was able to build up the bed quite nicely.

When I went home to Prosser, Washington, for my niece Allison's baptism (I'm now a godfather - look out!), I snagged some sawdust for the pathways. The pictures show just 10 gallons of sawdust laid down; I've got 30 more gallons. The sawdust will play a critical role of keeping the pathways from being too muddy.

You will notice that the soil utterly lacks any humus or organic matter. This will have to be remedied for carrots, tomatoes, onions, and many other vegetables to grow well.