Garden History Chapter 15

The Back Yard Garden By Night
This summer I was meandering in the back yard and thought it would be fun to take a few pictures of the garden by night.
This is a picture of the dwarf apple tree bearing fruit. By the way, the apples were delicious!

In an earlier chapter I told you what we did with the lattice and this bench seat. This photo shows the morning glories climbing right up to the top and over. I think I might put a little table in front of the bench. That might make for a cozier sitting arrangement! Just trying to hid the brick path to nowhere.

These next picture is of the vegetable garden. In our climate we can usually plant string beans several times because of the long growing season. I believe this was planting number three. Some of the plantings had a harder time than others because we had a pretty bad water shortage.

I like to keep a little light in the back yard so we found these nifty solar yard lights. Normally people put them in the ground but we wanted them on the fence so my hubby modified them so we could do just that. The put out much more light this way too. I lightened this first picture a bit so you can clearly see some of the drought damage to the grass.

The fence reminds me of a runway, when night falls.

Stay tuned for the next chapter. Thanks.

Garden History Chapter Thirteen

SPRING Chronicled 2008!

The birds are arriving and my plum tree is in full bloom. With all of its problems, it didn’t die.

The Hibiscus plants that I keep indoors all winter will be much happier when I am able to move them outside again. I don’t put them out if the night time temps are below 50 degrees. They cannot take the cold.

Now, the most recent picture of the garden. Hubby got the tiller out and got the soil turned. Isn’t that the prettiest dark soil you ever did see? I’ll be taking the kolrabi out of the cold frame and transplanting them when they are just a little bigger.


A clean slate again. Through the summer photos and blog coming soon.

GARDEN HISTORY Chapter 10

Pictured below are the fruit trees I planted on the side yard. The plum is the closest. This stayed. The other two had to be replaced because they would grow large for this small space. I replaced them with a transplanted blueberry shrub (moved from under a too dark tree canopy), a dwarf peach and a dwarf pear. Not seen here are the dwarf apple and the pomegranate.

In the far back, next to the shed, is where I planted the ferns. I mentioned those earlier. We did keep two (very antique) camellia shrubs. One has a wonderful double red blossom. I left one as a bush. The other I keep trimmed and pruned as a short tree because it grows between the house and shed. This one blooms pink and stands behind the shed but tops over the fence so it gets enough light.

Now that you all have had the tour of my entire, small yard. The last place that is left is the vegetable garden! This garden is only about 9×24 feet in size but it does produce a lot of food! By the way, I grow catnip and cat grass in all of those pots. Have to keep the kitties well fed too. Lol

From here on out I will be able to update this Journal with some ease. Plus, I will be able to post current pictures as things happen.
I hope you will continue to enjoy the on going saga of this garden in Southeastern Virginia.

Garden History Chapter Two

My Garden Journal-Chapter Two

Well, the family grew. So we had to move out of our little house with the little garden. We moved to a wonderful two story, eight sided house, it appeared round, outside of the city. It came with a 4.5 acre chunk of land. A functioning, heated, Green House. Grapes vines and about 15 rows, each, of Boxwood and Pyracantha bushes plus a riding mower/tractor with attachments. What fun learning to use the plow and cultivators. The bad news came after I checked with our agricultural department and found out I couldn’t sell the bushes without having proper testing done on the soil. But I could sell anything I grew in the Green House because I would be mixing clean potting soils. Joy, joy. In my part-time, I could grow plants then, eventually, I could earn money to pay for the propane gas I needed to keep the green house warm.

We soon found out that we had no talent with the attachments on the mower/mini tractor! Although, we did manage to get all the bushes dug up. The ground was clay and hard as a rock. Very hard to work by hand. This hugh plot of holes (about an eighth of an acre) became my year round vegetable garden. I could freeze ‘em, can ‘em and feed the family year round! But it was like hard labor until my mother and her hubby showed up one day and gifted me with the tool I had been talking and reading about for so long. My Troybilt Horse. What a dream! Vegetable gardening became an instant success after we put a dump truck of sand in the holes.
I grew so many plants in my green house, started many sets for the garden and even grew tomatoes and peppers in the winter.

The pets, a horse, a pony, goat, duck, rabbit, two or three dogs, cats and a couple dozen chickens all provided fertilizer for the garden, lol. Of course, sometimes it was hard keeping all those critters out of the garden, I even caught my dogs eating the melons in the summer!! But all good things come to an end and we had to move. Next installment of the saga in Chapter Three. The Blackwater years and the Troybilt never leaves my side.

Spring 09 City Gardening

March, 2009, Spring is just around the corner.
Thank goodness the weather was in the 70’s today. What a glorious day, around here you just never know what you are going to get from one minute to the other! Just 6 days ago we had snow on the ground.

The birds have been chirping all morning and I got up early, opened all the windows in the house to air it out, put on my duds and headed outside to dig around in the yard. I might be a little stiff tomorrow because the Hubs and I have been hibernating all winter. *giggles*

I pulled weeds in one of my azalea beds and turned over the pine straw before I did anything else. I took a lot of breaks in between because I was sweating so much. It is always better to take things a little slower when you have sat idle all winter. Then I started to think about where to put some seeds and just what seed I had that could be planted this early in the season.

I told you in the previous post that I had to remove some bushes, so I decided to plant some lettuce, parsley and radishes in this location until I figure out what type of long term plant I want to place there. Why waste good space? Seeds are in the ground and I covered them with some leaves. We still might have some cold nights.

The Hubs put the makeshift cold frame up (recycled golf cart windshields) and made it a little larger this year. I put the Kohlrabi in there. If we have another cold snap we will be able to protect them after they have germinated.

I promised a friend that I would post a picture of the leaf lettuce that I planted last November. I covered them with leaves in the late fall and now they are doing beautifully. They survived our cold winter months! I can’t wait till I get to pick some. Next to that row of lettuce I just planted three rows of radishes. I have to be very careful of where to plant things this time of year because certain spots in the garden don’t get full sun enough hours in the day.

The plum tree, as much as I have worried about her over the years, still stands and is getting ready to open in full bloom any day now.

Last, but not least, are the empty pots at the base of the lattice. I plopped some pretty Morning Glory seeds in those and when the weather warms up they will climb up and over the lattice and bloom every morning.

If you would like to view some pictures that I took today you can CLICK HERE and look for Chapter 18 in my garden journal.