Just starting to get to the point where I'm doing a serious think into what I want in future backyard gardening. When your garden flops like mine did this year, it gives ya lots of time to think. Last year was my first BIG year and I planted too much for one person to tend. This year, I wanted to include some flowers amongst the veggies, introduced the perennial day lillies from my northern friends and bought two hibiscus bushes from Home Depot this week when they went on sale 2/$10 with a coupon from their garden club.
Em and I discussed for days where to plant the hibiscus and the only thing he offered was ... "I don't want them interfering with my job" ... [which is cutting the lawn.] That meant that they were to be planted along the fence garden ... which will eventually be weeded and (I've just now decided planted completely with perennials and then lined with weed cloth and covered with an attractive mulch.)
Annual flowers and vegetables will next year be set in two 4x9 raised beds where currently I'd tried to grow them in the ground on two sides of the yard. I'll save my pennies and buy the two raised beds from a gardening center (already made to just be put together by sliding something over the ends. They sell stuff a fool can put together and while their stuff LOOKS expensive, when one needs to hire someone to build something like this it could WAY surpass their cost. I might even buy a few of their bags for growing various types of potatoes. Grass is growing into the two 4x9 gardens we have currently. I still throw compost in them and Em mows it.
So, this fall, I'll move the raspberry bush from the side of the house to the back right corner of the yard because currently Em has to mow around it and I don't look to the side of the house anyway, so the thing was getting ignored. I'll probably also move the backyard blueberry bush over near the hibiscus because they have similar soil needs and it isn't getting enough sun where it is currently, even though it's in the backyard along the fence. MY lemon balm will be trimmed and moved as well. In fact, I might put it where the blueberry bush was because it's growing way too well where it is and I don't use much lemon balm.
Not sure whether I'll do anything formal about compost with this new plan. Truth is: Just two of us don't make enough compost to feed even one 4x9 garden. I might get a small attractive composter to set on the patio for everything except g-diapers. I'll throw those into the grass and let Em mow them. Still thinking it all through. Any ideas?
3 comments:
You just reminded me that I haven't even LOOKED at my garden in awhile. Dad just cut down a bunch of trees that I was told was blocking out the majority of the sun where it is. But it has also been raining here so much that we haven't even needed to water it!
I was ooberly excited to find out that we have wild blackberries growing out in our backyard. I packed up a whole bunch of those puppies the other day. Yum!
When did you get a raspberry bush? /jealosy
I think at some point you're going to need to focus on low energy gardening if you are going to use the whole yard.
There was a drip watering system that I thought would be perfect for your yard, given the heat/lack of rain. Unfortunately, it has proved impossible to find.
it seemed like the basic idea behind it was to shade/cool the water, to keep the water stored from evaporating, and it was supposed to collect dew as well, but there really wasn't enough info there to tell.
Got the first raspberry bushes three years ago. Got another several two years ago. Blackberries produce better here, though. They don't mind the heat.
Spent several days looking into different gardening methods this week. I'd like to try a little bit of this and a little bit of that.
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