It's Garden Time!

The past weekend we put in a lot of time in our garden and backyard. Our adventure started Friday when we went to Home Depot to get dirt for the garden. We needed vermiculite and for some odd reason, they had it on an extremely high shelf and needed a ladder to get it down. Well, it took about 15-20 minutes for the employee to return with the ladder. Poor Anna was getting so restless in the cart. But we got what we needed, only to find it cheaper at a nearby nursery and will end up taking it back, along with some extra compost and peat moss. Ahh, such is life.

We had our first garden last year and made a 4'x4' raised bed. Dan wanted to extend and deepen our garden, so we added 3' and made it 1' deep, rather than 6 inches. Our soil consisted of three different components that had to be mixed-vermiculite, compost and peat moss. We had to mix equal parts on a tarp and then transfer it to the garden. It was kind of hard work, but nothing we couldn't handle. :)

So far we have lettuce, strawberries, tomatoes, corn and beans. The funny thing about this lettuce, is it's from last year. We didn't even do anything this year, it just started growing! And it's doing great!

We also decided to plant some fruit trees!

Here is our peach tree...

Here is our cherry tree...

Here is a view of both of them. We had to plant them in places that would get a lot of sun, so the placement may look kind of funny. Hopefully in 10 years it will be okay.

As you can see our backyard is dirt and weeds. Last year we had a few weeds, this year we have a gazillion!!! We even got rid of a lot of them and they just keep growing. I would love to just have dirt, rather than weeds and dirt. Sad, huh. Anyone want to donate to the Phelan's backyard fund? :)

And here are some really random things we dug up while trying to dig deep holes for the trees. Our house is almost 40 years old. Who knows what is buried in our yard! We found this plastic tubing. At first we thought it might have been part of a sprinkler system, but no it was just a random piece of tubing. Then we found two large concrete rock things. They aren't rocks, but concrete. Plus a brick. Huh...I have no explanation for this. But it's a good thing we found it, so when the cherry tree's roots grow, these won't be blocking them.

Here is a stump that my man Dan dug up, by himself.

Okay, I helped him lift it out of the hole, but he did everything else himself. We were going to plant a tree here, but then changed our minds. But the stump needed to go anyways. You can see in the right corner, there is another one that needs to go to.

It was a busy Saturday, but we got a lot done. We're seriously considering buying some sod and putting in grass in a small area by the patio. We have a lot of work to do in the backyard to make it look decent. So many things to do, so little money... :)