First blueberries!

On Thursday evening Wifey and I had a "date" and wandered around the property to see what our permaculture has been up to.  We were quite excited to find that had our first ripened blueberry!

Last night, we took another walk for the same reasons and came across another four.  We shared these with the kids.  There are quite a few more left on the other bushes needing to ripen further.

With cooler temperatures (low-mid 70's) forecasted for the next few weeks, I need to find a way to buy and plant a few more things out in the orchard.  I'm thinking either raspberries (don't know which varieties) or another few blueberry bushes.

Grass mulch in the garden

Growing up, my dad used to frequently bag his grass clippings when he mowed the lawn.  He would spread them out in a thick mat around the plants in the veggie garden to use as both a weed barrier and to add nutrients to the soil.

While we lived at the townhouse, we never generated enough clippings to help with the garden plot.

In my perusal of the shed, I came across a bagging attachment to tow behind the mower.  I used it with some limited success to collect leaves early this spring.  I decided to try it today after mowing our lawn to see if it'd collect the grass, too.

I'm proud to say that it worked as I'd hoped.  The soil was still pretty soggy from our rainfall over the last few days, but it worked well.  Would have been even better if it weren't so wet -- the wheels that turn the brush attachment that throws the debris in the bag wouldn't turn on mud.

I collected enough grass that I was able put a few-inches-thick mat of grass on a few rows of the middle part of the garden just by mowing the back and main part of the yard.

Pole Beans, Sweet Corn: In

No pictures worth showing (what, you want a picture of patches of dirt?, but I planted pole beans and sweet corn last night.  Having never grown (or even tried to grow) corn before, I'm sure I've messed something up in some manner, but it's worth a shot.

At least more stuff is in.  And that's the important thing.  Because I said so and this is my blog.  In this tiny space, what I say goes.

Compost is tilled and the first veggies are in!

After receiving a good bit of rain over the previous day+, we got a bit of a lull in the rain yesterday afternoon.  That gave me the time to roto-till in the compost I'd spread on the side garden.

Because The Bear had been put to bed and The Boy and The Girl were playing in the yard, I had the time to get some stuff planted.  Unfortunately very few of my starters lived this year for some odd reason so I had to purchase organic, non-GMO starters.  I was able to get a lot of those purchased tomato and pepper plants in along with a few basil plants.

I have a number of seeds to plant, but at least we finally are "on the board" in the side garden!

The garden has a gate!

Yesterday marked my second day off of work with the sole purpose of getting things done around the house.  We have no shortage of projects we're trying to get knocked out.  The main three, though, are to get the side garden going, get the front garden finished, and to rebuild the pool deck and re-landscape that whole area (technically a two-part project).

Since I'd nearly completed the first cut of the front garden on Tuesday, I went after the side garden again.  On Tuesday I re-sunk the left side post for the garden gate.  Somehow (I have theories), when I sunk it it didn't end up vertical.  Seeing how much other work I have ahead of me, I didn't make it completely perfect -- the gap is now only 1" wider than at the top instead of how far off it was beforehand -- but it's a lot better than it was.  The "perfect" option would have added a few more hours of work to the task.

To stiffen up the entryway, I mounted a 2x4 above the door and a 2x6 below the door.  I left the 2x6 about 2" above the ground level to account for the mulch I'll be applying inside the doorway.  Unfortunately, because the ground is sloped, the threshold 2x6 looks a bit odd.  The door is made of 2x4's with heavy-duty brackets at the exterior corners and smaller L-shaped brackets at the middle support. 

Still to do:

• Roto-till the composted area so we can finally plant stuff.
• Mount the handles, a latch, and fencing material to the gate.
• Mount 1x6's at the top of the wire fence (4' above the ground) and a few inches above the ground.  They will help stiffen the posts to correct some minor leaning, add strength to the fence, and to improve the look since Wifey wants it to be pretty.
• Add a few more cubic yards of compost to the rest of the garden.
• Install the second primary path.

In retrospect, I wish I'd done this earlier since I'm two weeks behind schedule of when I wanted to get vegetable plants in the ground.

Major progress in the front bed

I took the day off of work today.  I made a ton of progress in the front garden bed.  Since we had purchased a lot of herbs this past weekend, I had a lot to plant so plant I did.

Once they were all in the ground, I mulched most of it.  One more cubic yard of mulch will finish it off.  I'll do that once I tackle the other path in the side garden.

Yes, that's my shadow.  I'm awesome like that.

More compost in the garden

Unfortunately, there have been other landscape projects taking priority over the side garden.  Thankfully, I have managed to eke out a bit of time here and there and have added some more compost to the mix.  I need to roto-till it in to mix it into the soil.

I still need to finish building the gate, though.  That'll be a project for today.

Adding compost to the garden

Yesterday, I added some compost (Leafgro, actually) to the side garden.  I was (still am, I guess) conflicted over it.  On one hand the grass in that area looked healthy.  On the other hand, I don't know whether anything I plant there would thrive and, if not, I'd be wasting a year on the experiment.

Anyway, I picked up a cubic yard of Leafgro from one of the local Southern States stores and spread it out on the soil roughly 1" thick.  In the next day or two I'll go get another load and do more.  I'll roto-till that into the soil to mix things up.

I figure I have 4 more loads before the entire garden has been augmented.

Artichokes are planted

A few days ago I picked up four artichoke plants from Behnke nurseries.  I was able to get them planted in their front bed locations this evening.

Now I just need to learn how to keep them from dying off during the winter.

More fencing

With the day off of work, we fit in some fence work.  We finished up the wire fence then added the deer fencing above the wire.  Just need to get the gate built and installed now!

Wire fence goes up

Yesterday evening Wifey and I got some time to get some more of the wire fence up.  Just the last section by the gate to go.

Mulching the path, more posts in the ground

As I thought, Wifey showed up with the kids yesterday in the early afternoon.  That gave me more time to get work done around the yard.

In addition to a few other yard projects, I laid down the cardboard in the path, mulched what needed to be addressed, dug a few more holes for posts, and then sunk the four that I had.  That leaves one more post to buy and sink.  Then I need to build a gate.  Progress!