A Weekend in the Garden

We spent the last weekend in May landscaping and getting the front side-yard ready for another vegetable garden. The pressure was on to get the front side-yard ready, since it’s now time to plant the warm weather veggies. If we delay much longer, some of them won’t be ready before the first frost.

Greenhouse Garden Center

Saturday was spent moving rock, and digging up trees and bushes. The previous owner of our house setup an ugly, low maintenance yard, so we’ve spent the last year hauling thousands of pounds of rock and bark, converting our yard to something we enjoy looking at, being in, and can garden on.

Adding Color to the Front Yard

We visited the Greenhouse Garden Center on Sunday morning. The Garden Center is a great place to spend an hour browsing, and begs to be explored. High quality plants, many varieties, and knowledgeable staff are all throughout the grounds. It’s a welcome alternative to the garden centers of the big box / warehouse stores. My son even had a good time exploring, and didn’t get bored! We bought as much as we could carry, and headed for home.

Front Side Yard – BEFORE

First we planted new shrubs and flowers in the front yard. We selected drought tolerant shrubs of different colors and gave them plenty of room to grow. We made the mistake of planting too close at our last place. Shrubs like Scotch broom grow up really quick!

Front Side Yard – BEFORE

The landscaping in the front side-yard is far from being finished, but there is now enough room to plant some veggies. Most of Saturday and part of Sunday were spent digging out bushes and moving rock. It was so rewarding to finally get something planted after doing all the prep! We planted a variety of peppers, tomatoes, and tomatillos, and will soon plant some pole beans, and a variety of squash. I’ll continue to work around the perimeter of the garden while everything is growing.

The beginnings of a new garden

We had about a half yard of Full Circle Compost garden soil left over, so there wasn’t enough to make complete raised beds. I loosened up the bed area, and mixed in garden soil and compost. Since the tomatoes and peppers are transplants, I dug out holes where I expect most of the root growth to take place and filled the holes with the good garden soil. There should be just enough soil left over to make some decent mounds for planting squash too. Next year I’ll order more soil and build the beds up complete.