I spent the day getting my plants moved out from the front yard to the back, still have more to move tomorrow, and then I can start getting them ready to put in the little garden area. We got some of that plastic garden fencing, that is similar to the netting that they use at construction sites, but this is dark green instead of that bright orange. The fence is up, and I am going to use some of the bamboo that we cut a while back to reinforce the fence, and then it can be a trellis for the maters and cukes to climb up. Once I get the bamboo trellis up, and the tomatoes in the planter baskets, I will post another picture. We went to the Dollar Tree (my kind of shopping !), and I spent about $20 and came home with s bunch more laundry baskets for use as planters, plus some solar lights and a packet of Impatiens seeds. The solar light seems to be working, except for one, but at $1 each, there is bound to be some that don’t work, and it might just need more of a charge than they got today. I am definitely thinking about getting more solar lights !
In my defense, I only bought two things..... laundry baskets and solar lights.......and one little packet of seeds.
Progress is happening on our little backyard garden area. I am getting more plants potted up in the laundry baskets, and they are getting plenty of sunshine, so I am hopeful that we may actually get tomatoes this year, and not just scraggly little sun-deficient vines. We have the plastic fencing up, but I still have to put in the bamboo supports and lattice. It is actually getting hot here , and feeling like summer, and jumping in the little backyard pool to cool off; so I got my hair cut today. I was forced to wear a mask to do it, and really had to think about that one; but I wanted the haircut, so I wore the little mask they gave me when I was in the hospital for the cardioversion.
This is one of my laundry basket planters before filling it with dirt and potting soil and mulch. I have used the tops of the bamboo to line the basket, and am saving the bottom of the bamboo For making fencing. that is a peony , @Von Jones , a beautiful one !
I am growing peas in a pallet this year, with the pallet leaning up against the stump of a tree that I cut down because it was in the middle of the yard, shading everything. That's my outside desk and chair on the right. I moved a metal desk outside and added a chair that I was going to throw away so that I can take my MacBook out there while I am supervising the cats outside. I'm not sure what Michelle is growing in the planters. I know there's some tomatoes in there, but they're not doing well. We have never been successful at growing tomatoes. Ella is a camera hog. I decided to plant perennial wildflowers on Lydia and Cutie's graves. My experience with planting wildflowers is that, while they come up the first year, they don't flower. It usually takes a few years before I get flowers out of them. The lilac is blooming. I have one large lilac bush, which blooms every year, but I have five others that are smaller, and which never seem to get any larger, and never bloom, and it's been at least five years now. I love the smell of lilacs. Just a closer pic of the peas in a pallet. Some of them didn't come up so I planted more peas in the empty spaces. They haven't sprouted yet. I used a mixture of humus, shredded cardboard, perlite, and coco coir, which is like peat moss. I crumbled chunks of compressed coco coir into the mixture. Because it expands when water is added, it helped to keep the soil inside the pallet, as would the shredded cardboard. I also mostly blocked the holes on the back.
Each morning, I have been going outside and working in the yard, pruning the wild vines around the fence, and planting more veggies for the little garden. I have used some (but not all) of the bamboo that Bobby cut down for me, and have been re-enforcing up the sides of the plastic fencing, and even made the gate work a little better. I had some outside metal stands that we used out front, and Bobby moved those out back, and I connected them into the fencing also, and putting smaller planting containers on the shelves. I am planting pinto beans in some of the smaller containers. I watched a YouTube video about someone who planted plain old grocery-store beans, and then they ate them as green beans, before they made the seed pods, like you usually do with pinto beans. Hopefully, they will take over the fencing, and be prolific there, and the tomatoes in the back along the stock panel fencing. Here is a picture of how it is coming along since my last picture. Things are starting to grow, and I have a few more containers in the garden now. It
I bought some wild blackberry root starts from ebay a while back, and have them in a pot for now to see if they are going to sprout. The planter area along the fence is not ready for them yet anyway, so I will be leaving them in the bucket for a while. I am excited to see that one of them is starting to sprout ! I also got some wild Washington blackberry starts from a niece who lives on the west coast south of Seattle. Two of them are now starting to show lint leaves, too; so it looks like we will definitely have some blackberry starts to plant later this year, probably in the fall. The Jostaberries are still in the planter , and they are growing and looking great, so I won’t replant those until this fall either. My wild blackberry start with it new leaves: