Digging in the Dirt

The backyard project has been a long time in the making.  If you don't remember what the yard looked like, you can revisit September 2008, that should give you the basic idea of what kind of condition I started with.  Last summer's efforts really began with some coaxing from Brian K. who was around for the first time the yard crap was purged.  We dismantled the ramshackle brick patio and repurposed the bricks and used them as a border for the walkway/patio, carefully laid out!

I hate flagstone patios with a passion because of the labor involved with installing and maintaining them so I opted for pea gravel which is easy to spread, rake, grade, replace . . . the only hard part was moving it, one bucket at a time into place.  Another point of minor inconvenience was the state of the timeshare pickup truck.  The alternator wasn't working for some mysterious reason so every trip required a recharge of the battery.  The state of hybrid technology for vehicles has come a long way but our 1985 F-150 certainly wasn't meant to be run this way!

Life is often about timing and there just happened to be a patio table and chair set on craigslist that was of interest as the patio was getting finished.  It fit quite nicely and as the rest of the yard was progressing, it gave me a place to sit and admire my work.

I put together two 4' x 8' garden boxes and dreamed of vegetables to come . . . more on that later.

With the old brick patio gone, the grill was relocated as you can see in the background.  Work on the beds for the plants was well underway with weed barrier and mulch down to keep the yard from returning to its previous state!

All of the random rocks and flagstones that were dug up from whatever the former owner of the house had done were reused creatively, mostly because I had no desire to figure out how to dispose of them.

The last mission for the truck and the slurpee drinkin' crew was to roll out the green carpet and get some grass a growin'.  I'm a huge fan of sod for the instant gratification it provides.  Where there was dirt, there is real, live grass!

I was never a boy scout, but I'm pretty sure I have earned my junior irrigation specialist merit badge by this point.  I extended/expanded the existing drip system and included some zones for the grassy areas.

The backyard has been transformed.  Once upon a time, we sat back there and burned scraps of old fence and whatever else we could find.  Now, we can dine al fresco, in class/style/grace and solve the problems of the world.

In phase one, I got the bulk of the work done in the yard, but there were still a few spots to fill in and more plants to plant.  I didn't get around to planting a garden last summer, just some herbs in pots.  So last week, I used the yard as an excuse not to ride my bicycle.  The pickup truck, now working properly (thanks to Mr. Edwards, the senior), was once again loaded up, this time with a "planter's mix" of dirt.

Said dirt found it's way into the raised garden boxes and as you can see from the excessive amount of grass clippings, the sod has taken and the grass is growing very quickly.

The garden now includes some tomatoes, some lettuces, a couple peppers, a few varieties of squash, radishes, carrots, beans . . . I'm sure there is something else I am forgetting.  I also planted a few creeping, viney things on the outside of the boxes; a pumpkin, a watermelon, and a cantaloupe.  I have a few fruits growing in the yard.  There is a row of raspberries and a row of blackberries that I will be training along the fence.  I planted three blueberry bushes that are already showing signs of fruiting in year two.  I'll include more detail in future posts, especially as things start to sprout and grow into something of visual interest.