Garden Progress!

I have so many pictures other than this, but I stupidly loaded them onto my computer at home and deleted them off the camera.  These I had to rip from my FB account.  But I am so excited with how the garden, and in fact the entire yard, is developing.  I know the anklebiters need a certain amount of grass to run like crazy on, but I'm starting to think that grass is dumb.  Dumb, I tell you!  Why would I devote my entire yard to grass when I could grow food and herbs and other amazing stuff instead?  Cue to me defiantly blowing dandelion seedheads all over the place - I want dandelions.  I am going to make them the must-have lawn accessory.  You can eat them, and they have pretty flowers, and the seedheads can keep your children entertained.  And by not spraying them with weed killer (or the dreaded Weed n' Feed - more on that here) you are saving your children from increased allergy and asthma risks.  Don't be the dick who needs the greenest lawn.

Anyyyyyyyway, here are a few pictures, more to come!

 My in-laws came to visit a while back, and they like soda.  We don't typically have it in the house, so the Mister was dispatched to get a couple of liter bottles.  After they left we dumped the remainder of soda down the drain, then rinsed the bottles and put them in the recycling.  I was on StumbleUpon and came across an article from a man who cuts the bottles in half, fills the bottoms with pebbles and soil, then adds seeds and water and flips the bottle closed.  Instant greenhouse.  I had to try it.  These are cabbage seeds that sprouted within a few days!  The bottle keeps the seeds moist and warm and they sprout very fast.  In the other bottle I sprouted some Chocolate Beauty bell peppers.  They have both been moved into the garden and the bottles are now being used to sprout valerian and angelica.  

 Side view of the garden.  My garden!  I have a kick-ass garden!!!  Guess I better cross this off the to-do list.  The pots on the side are my heirloom tomatoes, which I'm nervous about.  They're not very big except for a few.  Next year I will start them earlier and maybe use the soda bottle trick under the grow lamps.  The wooden planter is mustard greens and we moved Mooch's strawberry plants, which last year got eaten by slugs, into a planter.

The hay is leftover from Samhain decorations - I had a bale outside with pumpkins and gourds sitting on it, and I had thrown it under our deck with the intention of adding it slowly to the compost bin.  I came across another article (I need to start keeping track of this so I can credit people!) that touted covering your garden with hay to keep the soil moist and keep down weeds.  This is a line of zucchini and yellow squash - I should mention that I did thin the line after this was taken.  I can't wait for these suckers to start producing - and for fried zucchini blossoms!

Heirloom sugar snap peas on the left, radishes on the right.  Yum!

This is in the back of the yard - a little bed I created in front of the compost bin.  See that tree-like thing in the back?  That's my first ever witch hazel!  I treated myself to it at a local plant sale, and I am so excited to have this growing in our very own backyard.  I look straight out at this bed from my kitchen window, so I get to see flowers and birds as I slave away over dirty dishes.

Little shady bed on the opposite side of the yard.  That stick is mountain laurel, which grows all around my parent's property.  I absolutely love it, and the fallen branches look like driftwood.

Our latest herb/faerie garden.  Mooch added the decorations, I added the dill, thyme, oregano, and marjoram.

My kids go through berries like crazy.  This is an everbearing strawberry plant, which claims to produce from now through September.  We shall see.

This I'm so excited about (no, not the dog butt).  This is a thornless blackberry bush.  I'm starting with one but there may be others, snuck in so the Mister doesn't notice ;-)

The site of the next project, the rain garden.  That pile is sod that we dug up when we put in the garden.  I started to move it into a bin so we could take it to our community compost pile and dump it, and disturbed two gigantic wolf spiders that both had egg cases still attached to their abdomens.  So I'll let it stay for a while, or at least move it bit by bit.  If anyone has a fetish for digging really big holes, please feel free to come over and start digging.