Our Garden is slightly in Bloom. It is still pretty cold here so a few things are “ill” from the cold but hopefully they will spring back to life as the weather improves.

Jeremy and I have been busy weeding, mulching, composting, and planting.

I have been busy digging up a large concrete car port area in the back yard. A shovel, a sledgehammer, and advice is all it takes. Our driveway starts in front of the house to the right, runs along the whole side of the house and then extends into the back yard by half the length of the yard. Then the other half (minus about 4 feet) is a large concrete block where a car port used to be. From the start of the backyard to the end the concrete is overgrown with grass and moss and stuff. As we only have 1 car there is no need to have a 100ft (estimating) driveway/carport area. So, I’m digging it all up a little at a time and we will be putting in a pond with a large waterfall and a hand built stone grill built into the side of the waterfall and a large stone patio and maybe a large deck too. Obviously, we won’t have this done for a while since we’re doing it ourselves with as low a budget as possible but it will get done eventually. I figured it may be finished by next fall or the fall after that. Depends on money and how motivated I am.

Jeremy took a video of the concrete patch in the backyard:

Watch Yard Work – Before – 2009 – the Driveway in Family |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

In addition to getting the new garden set up and planted, and getting that damn concrete/asphalt out of the yard, we also have plans of doing some DIY landscaping on the cheap. We’re sketching out plans of plots to dig up for the front, back yard, and sides of the house where we’ll plant flowers and trees, and so on. To make it look a little nicer. Right now it looks a little ghetto. It doesn’t help that the damn house is YELLOW, either. Yellow plastic siding, I hate yellow and plastic siding. I’d rather high maintenance wood siding or stone any day. I just can’t afford to redo the siding…yet.

Here is a list of all the things we’re growing this year:

Consumables:

Watermelon
Pumpkin
Peas
Garden Beans
Cucumbers
Beets
Green Peppers
Sweet Peppers (Mixed variety)
Garlic
Parsley
Chives (Garlic Flavored and regular)
Organic Chocolate Mint
Clary Sage
Tomatoes
Cilantro
Cantelope
Parsnips
Basil
Sweet basil
Evening Primrose
Eggplant
Romaine Lettuce
Oregano
Dill
Chervil

Non-Consumables:
Sunflowers
Midnight Lilies (Dark Purple)

Midnight Cala Lilies I planted by marla13 on Zooomr
Canterbury Bells (Mixed Variety)
Tulips (Purple)
Lavender
Cemetery Flowers (hostas)
Mixed “wild” flowers
And flowers that looks like red roses but I can’t remember the name…I can’t find the packet at the moment. I’ll update this when I do.

We also have some wild Ivy growing around the house, wild violets all over the backyard and Wild onions growing around the front yard and backyard.

We intend to plant many more things this year but this is our “starter” list. Eventually our entire front and backyard will be garden beds done to look like landscaping with a few “hang out” areas like the stone patio, pond, and deck. We’ll also eventually have stone pathways leading to different parts of the garden.

I can’t wait until it is all finished.

Also, the nectarine tree is doing great. We were a little worry about it since we didn’t get to transplant it right away last year when the closing on the house was screwed up multiple times. It’s in full bloom though and looks lovely.

Our Nectarine Tree in Bloom 3 by marla13 on Zooomr

Our Nectarine Tree in Bloom 7 by marla13 on Zooomr

Our Nectarine Tree in Bloom bee by marla13 on Zooomr

The apple tree is…alive. Not in bloom yet and not much new growth to be found. We’ll see how that goes closer to fall.

The Japanese Maple is still tiny. It’s in bloom but like the apple tree, not much new growth yet.