2014 Early Spring Plantings

The garden in early spring.  The tomato plants, strawberry plants, potato bags and potato rows.

Trees

HoneyCrisp Apple (L),  CrestHaven Peach (R), Fuji (C)

I wanted some fruit bearing trees to add to my self-sufficient yard, so off to the local nursery, or two for us.  I picked out a semi-dwarf HoneyCrisp Apple and a dwarf CrestHaven Peach.  Once I got home a did a little more reading on trees, I found I needed another apple tree, of a different variety.  I wanted a Fuji since the kids and I love the sweet, crisp, juicy apple. (This is where the second nursery came into play).  Off to the second nursery and found a semi-dwarf Red Fuji and a Hardy Giant Pecan.  I love walnuts more but I know I use pecans more frequently in my cooking and they are far more expensive than walnuts.

I mentioned before that there are some items in the yard that don't fall into to my plan for everything to have a purpose.  For instance, the two trees that are in the background in the picture of the front yard will go.  They were planted a few years back, with the intent of adding something to that side of the house.  They were planted too close to the house and now I don't like them.  They will go, at some point.  

We also planted a non-fruit bearing tree about seven or eight years ago, and a Weeping Cheery back when I did NOT want fruit falling to the ground.  I'm torn about these trees.  They are taking up valuable real-estate but I love them.  They have beautiful bloom and adds to our curb appeal but..... if I were planting them now, they would definitely be fruit bearing trees.

Indian Hawthorns removal

   We once had a deck off the kitchen, but had to remove it because there was damage to the kitchen subfloor.  We found the damage while remodeling our kitchen and we haven't decided what we want to do with the area yet.  Build a new deck?  Build just a walkway?  Add just steps?  Change the french doors back into a bay window?
     When the deck was there, we had Indian Hawthorns around it, but without the deck, it looked kind of silly.  Wanting to extend our garden and to get the most of our yard, we decided to pull out the Hawthorns.  Now I liked my hawthorns, but I've come to realize that everything has to have a purpose in my yard.  If I can't eat it, drink it or make something useful with it, it has to go (there are a few other items I have a harder time making this decision with, but more about that later).

Cultivator or Tiller or Both

We purchased an electric cultivator last summer.  Burnt that puppy up real quick this spring, apparently trying to do too much with it.  It being less than a year old, it was still under warranty, so off to the repair guy.  We had to wait FOREVER to get approval from the company to fix or replace it.  So, in the mean time I need something to dig up the garden right?  So, hubby went off to Home Depot and brought home a nice size tiller.  Pricy but oh so beautiful.  Chewed through the garden in no time, so heck, we decided to extend the garden.

Then last week we got our new replacement cultivator.  It is not the same brand and not as wide as our last one, but its better than nothing, or in our case, better than trying to fit a tiller into a space only a cultivator can go.

Compost Bin

We purchased a compost bin this spring.  I didn't do a whole lot of research on them before we purchased it because it was an impulse buy.  It has two sides so while one side is full and decomposing, I still can add to the other side.  I wish it has a hand to help roll it but this one is fine.  I wanted the bin in the yard, away from the back door for fear of the odors I though it should emit.  It is now on our deck, feet from the door, and there are no odors.

Greenhouse after the snow storm.

The snow storm arrived.  The greenhouse is doing fine, even without tie-downs, though they have been ordered.

Greenhouse assembly

Our small greenhouse.  Ordered it in December 2013 and received in January 2014.  We are assembling it on one of the few warm days but a snow storm is coming so we have to finish, numb fingers and all!  I have to order tie-down straps to keep it secure in the Nor-Easters and hurricanes that we get here in the east.

My old butterfly garden.

 This was my first garden in Virginia.  It wasn't my "first" garden because I had a salsa garden in Florida a few years prior to this one.  This garden was a butterfly garden and it did very nicely for what it was.  I had this garden for a few years and enjoyed see the butterflies.  I even attempted to attract hummingbirds to visit my garden with a feeder but I never saw one.
It had two different butterfly bushes, leeks and some flowers, something for each stage of a butterfly.

The decisions we make before we even know the direction we are actuallyheading

   Stuck in an urban neighborhood, with the desire for more open space, we had to adapt to our surroundings.  We were adapting our property long before we knew what we were actually doing it for.  With the best of intention, some of these changes had good consequences and some had bad.    Some of them were very bad, even though they had to be made because we were living with other undesired side effects if we didn't.
   One of these decisions were cutting down the many, many trees on the side of our house.  They dropped those horrendous gum balls and their large branches loomed over our house.  Other than the cost of cutting them down, it seemed like a good idea to rid ourselves of these nuisances.  Now years later, due to the lack of shade over a skylight and the west side of our house, we live with a very hot house during the summer and atrocious electrical bills.
   So, about two years ago, we started to look at the world a little different.  Well, ok, a lot different.  I have started a garden, and knowing nothing about "farming" of any sort (city girl here),  and I'm still learning on what I'm suppose to be doing with it.  Planting too close.  Planting too far apart.  Planting the right things and the wrong thing next to each other.  Why this plant or tree died and the one next to it lived?
   We've added water barrels, greenhouse, extended our gardens (front yard and back yard) and planted new foods that I haven't tied before via trading through the local community.  We have dreams for this property, for our "dream" property (it is a forever changing image, more about this later) and for our retirement years.  Hopefully our story will continue in a direction that meshes with one of our dreams, and if not, then our dream will mesh with our ever changing reality.