Our Backyard

Here are some pictures of the backyard that I promised not long ago. I am sorry to make you all wait so long.

Here is the new and extended veggie garden. The original plot is around the corner of the porch. I planted peas along the back that will climb the lattice work and bush beans in the front. You can see the little sprouts of squash. The begonias are right next to the steps to the porch.

This next picture is the new flower bed in the front corner of the backyard. It gets only a little sun in the very late afternoon only in the summer. The rest of the day and year it is shaded. We plan to put an azalea in the back corner and use more ferns and shade loving hastas in here. Right now the bench is for visual interest.

The next picture is of the new sod and the new flower bed under a big Pin Oak Tree. It still has some work left and we plan on extending it all the way to the fence on the left of the picture where the trashcan is, doubling it in size. In here we will plant more azaleas, hastas, and some other shade/sun plants. Like the rocks? The close up is of the corner right by the entrance to the backyard.

This next photo is a great look at how the grass is with and without the sod. We will be bringing in some topsoil in the late summer and spread it to raise the backyard up to where the sod is and then reseed the sections that are not sodded. Actually where the sod is there wasn't much more than dirt there.

This is such a great improvement in our backyard. I am so proud of it and excited to finish it. We still plan to bring in some rocks to put where the oil tank, trashcans and AC unit is. Oh there is so much to do but this is such a pleasant place already!!

An Expanded Garden

Okay, I know you will be dieing for some pictures but you will just have to wait. It is now dark outside and I will take some pictures tomorrow when it is sunny again. Plus I will have finished some more stuff by then and it will be really great. Now on with the story!!

Our mission today was to get our porch cleaned off from the winter items which got thrown out on the porch for storage. The porch was in sad condition. First the screened door just literally fell apart last fall. it was a cheap wood door and the pressure of all the slamming over the years had loosened all the joints and it fell apart one day. So we have been subject to all the elements plus varmints who want to come on the porch and check out the recycling bin, or the bag of trash tossed out for the time being because someone was too lazy to walk it all the way out to the trash cans (approximately 20 more steps). So we took every thing off the porch, checked out the wood decking floor under the carpet we put down a couple of years ago. All looked great and dry so we vacuumed, vacuumed again, and then shampooed the rug. We then tossed everything we don't want anymore (mainly trash stuffs), scrubbed all the furniture, the ledge going all around the porch and then the posts, trash cans (5 of them), coolers (we found 4 out there!!), and other things that had the green haze of pine pollen on it. Then we started putting things back. Needless to say, it looks great!! Still no door but that will come this week.

Then my husband said, "I have been watching the sun track in the back yard and the space right in front of the porch gets a bunch of sun all day long. Do you want to move the grill and the cushion storage container and make another little vegetable garden right along the front of the porch?"

I didn't have to think for long, as I have been wanting a little more room right here at the house for some more veggies. "yes, yes, yes!" I say.

So we moved the grill and the cinder blocks that it was sitting on. We put the cushion storage box on the porch to also double as more sitting space and we moved some left over wood blocks to make the border. K had brought in some compost from a job he had done and dumped it in our backyard, so we moved the beautiful dark brown compost soil to the new garden bed. I can't wait to start planting in it tomorrow.

Allie and I planted some begonias in another flower bed and I spread mulch around the pine tree which now sits in the middle of the sod we laid last week. We have about 10 more begonia plants and we have a flat of impatiens to plant also. They too will go in tomorrow.

Yesterday we put up our gazebo in the middle of the backyard (pictures to come), and we ate dinner under it last night. It has been sitting under our porch for the past two years and hadn't done anything with it. Now that it is up we wonder why we didn't do this sooner. We put rope lights all around the top and it glows in the darkness. It is really pretty.

Oh Sod beautiful Sod...

We are so lucky. My husband's brother decided to build a playyard for his son and he tore up about 1100 sq feet of sod out of his backyard with a sod cutter. He called us and asked us if we wanted it and without hesitation we said yes. Now this was on Sunday around noon just after we had decided that I would be doing laundry and my hubby would be going to work in the big garden down the street. So we scrapped our plans for some beautiful grass. Luckily, his brother and father offered to help lay it.

Let me say, it is BEAUTIFUL!! Dark green, thick grass just in the middle of our back yard where we couldn't get grass to grow to save our lives. Now we don't have brown dirt we have lovely, green grass!! I will take a picture of it soon and show.

It makes me want to finish the flower beds out there that we have planned and get some shrubs and flowers planted. Maybe tomorrow I can run out and grab a few impatiens and bigonias to plant. Maybe even a hosta or two. Oh the plans, oh the plans...