Photo Challenge - Photo 26, Dirt

Who doesn't love playing in the dirt?  I know I do!  For today's challenge photo I am using a picture of my garden!  My strawberry garden to be exact.  I am growing a plant on my deck in a large pot.  Today when I went to check on it because we have been gone a few days I found ripe strawberries!!!!  I thought the birds would have gotten to them before I did!  This photo shows what a bit of dirt can do for you!

Garden DONE!

The gardens are done, well at least the front garden beds are done!  And by done, they have dirt, and have plants in them.

We still need to get the river pebbles for the ground cover.  I think we decided that that would be best for the cat issue.

but before we get the pebbles we have a whole other garden to fill with dirt.  Yes we have finally completed the raised garden bed in the back yard for the vegetables/edibles!!

Selfie!

And of course by WE I mean my DH dug out and built the garden. The dogs kept watch, as did I.   We compromised on the material, and the garden is built out of cedar, which yeah isn't cheap, but it's all natural, and doesn't have chemicals in it like some landscaping materials do.  I think it looks a bit better than rock, although I do think eventually I will create a small flower garden and bench space, maybe an arbor so I can have some climbing vines, like clematis, or wisteria, in the square in front of the 'L', or even a small water feature!  The sky is the limit!

Well...the budget is the limit, but it can wait till next year...

I did have two grape vines, Concord and Pink Catawba, that I purchased from a big box store, the same time that I purchased the Flowering Plum tree we put in the front yard.  Wouldn't you know...they never budded out, or grew, they were dead when I purchased them...so those got returned today, and because they didn't have any live grape vines at that store, and I really wasn't keen on spending another $25 on vines or plants at that store I came back to Smithville and went to Pack's Hardware.  Man oh MAN do they have a fabulous selection of annuals, perennials and edibles! And their plant gal Terry is phenomenal!  I hope you have a place just as good in your neck of the woods as I do in mine...I ended up getting another Catawba vine, and of course they were out of the Concord, they are such popular vines because the fruit is delicious!  I decided to try a "King of the North Grape" I will do another post later all about the grapes...

I did also decide to purchase some vegetable plants, so I chose two types of beans, and a tomato plant.  I will probably end up with several types of tomatoes, and possibly some other vegetables, but this is a good start for my first garden!

Happy Spring and Happy Gardening!

Time for playing in the dirt!

One of the most expensive projects after purchasing a new house is the landscaping.  Sometimes you get lucky and the previous owners had decent green thumbs and everything was to your liking....but in our case there was ZERO landscaping here....And as in everything else I have champagne tastes, and a Rolling Rock Beer budget.

With the outdoor cat population in our neighborhood, we decided to do a rock border, and some plants that would help keep them from using our fresh turned soil as a litter box.  As we are only part way through our project we have not totally agreed on the topic of mulch vs. rock.  I'm pro rock, he's pro mulch.

We found a place nearby that mines the local limestone, and cuts it into big chunks for commercial use,  of course we need the smaller stuff and at our first house we ended up purchasing three pallets of the stone at $115 a pop....and we would need about the same for this house...fortunately we were told of several large chunks at our church, that needed to be disposed of, so for the small price of labor and fuel for going back and forth we (We, as in DH and my dad) were able to bust up several chunks, enough for us to do the borders for the side garden, and the two front gardens.  There will be enough left over for us to use the same stone in the backyard for the raised vegetable garden beds!  Woo hoo!

On the East side of the house I have planted the irises my dad dug up for me at the last house.  Some of these irises I helped my mom dig up at Longview Farms before Longview Lake was a lake...some came from other places, but I do know several of the rhizomes are from my childhood.  And those memories make me smile.

We were fortunate to get help from my dad breaking up the huge rocks, and then our neighbor came up and helped us rip up sod, and get some of these stones in place, I wasn't much help!








Now for the real expense associated with our landscape project.  The plants.

And that isn't all of them!  I was able to get some in the ground already thanks to a neighbor who had some great black dirt and had too much for their garden!

Lilac and Lavender

I decided this year to concentrate on a few solid and permanent plants for the garden.  Perennials are more expensive, like 3x the price of the one season annual.  But, worth it, because if I do my job watering when mother nature isn't making it rain then I shouldn't have to replace these plants, ever.  Doing the research on the different types of gardens in the small area of my front yard has been interesting to say the least,  I actually have a true shade garden, two full sun gardens, and a morning sun only garden.

We have one spot in the front yard to finish, fill and then plant, but that should be done this week!

My advice to you, research the area you want to plant, choose a color scheme for your gardens, mine is purple and green, and then take your time selecting plants.  Water as much as the plants need, so read the tags, and prepare to enjoy all your hard work and planting!  Whether you selected plants that are fragrant, edible, just pretty, or a combination of all three, having a garden can bring a smile to your face!