Update on First Foray into Gardening

Finally after too many rainy days, I was able to get back into the perennial garden today. I planted the plants we bought last week and some ferns that DH brought back from our camp. I lined the garden with stones, some that we dug up while cleaning up and the remainder from camp. I raked out the remaining area and planed grass seed. It now looks like this:

On the vegetable front, things are coming along. The first crop of arugala has been eaten and I’m hoping to plant some more if DH can find the seeds while he’s shopping today.

The cucumbers have some flowers and are beginning to grow up some stakes.

There are a few small tomatoes and the plants are getting really big. I tied them up for the second time today.

The zucchini plants are growing, too, with a few zucchini which seem to be growing well.

All I can say is, so far, so good!!

Mouse Tales

I was working on my perennial garden today and I needed a spade to do some planting. DH and I went out to the shed that is attached to the chicken coop to look for an appropriate tool. As he was looking through the garden tools, I saw something scurry from under the garden tractor. I mentioned it to DH and he shook the tractor slightly and a colony of mice ran from under the hood of the tractor as if they were leaving a sinking ship. They scurried around the shed trying to find hiding places while DH made some choice comments. He had recently displaced them from a space above the chicken coop and they obviously found a place to relocate.

We pushed the tractor out of the shed and DH took it apart and found that the whole engine compartment was stuffed with grass, probably as a mousy maternity ward. After vacuuming out the grass and putting the tractor back together, DH went directly to the hardware store. He returned with all sorts of mouse prevention aids. The shed is now full of traps and sticky papers. I’m glad I left my gardening tools in the garage because I’m definitely not going into the shed tomorrow to see the results.

Perennial Garden Update

So after a morning of hard work, this


now looks like this.


I'm amazed at the transformation. It's much bigger than I imagined it would be, so we decided that we will plant grass on some the of newly uncovered earth and have a smaller perennial garden, perhaps with a radius of 6 feet.

Tomorrow we'll take a trip to Gardeners' Supply for some advice on shade perennials and some grass seed. I can't wait to see it when it's finished!

Gardening (or Something Else I'm Trying in Retirement)

DH and I belong to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) so we have a lot of fresh vegetables each week as you can see in the photo of this week's share.

But, I've been thinking that last year there didn’t seem to be enough cucumbers, tomatoes and zucchini (yes, zucchini – I know, I know, if I wanted more I just should have left my car unlocked and some would appear!) This year I decided to start a small garden. DH built a raised bed for me for Mother’s Day and we bought some plants – just 9 tomatoes, 3 cucumbers and 2 zucchini. We also planted a row of arugala, which DH loves.

The plants were tiny when I first planted them, but they have really grown as you can see in the photo below. There are three tiny zucchini and the tomato plants have flowers. DH ate the arugala thinnings and now the plants are big enough to pick leaves each night for salad.

The next project will be a shade perennial garden.

Believe it or not, this used to be a very nice seating area before we built the deck, but after years of neglect it is so overgrown that it’s hard to picture how it will look as a garden. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.