Backyard Garden

I've mentioned my black thumb before - in fact since the last posting of me the gardening extraordinaire all but one of the plants have died. Yes dead as a doornail. Mostly due to the fact I forgot to water them. That and the stress of 100+ heat when they never were meant to withstand that also played a part in their demise, so I refuse to take full responsibility. ;-) However, with my son's first birthday party coming up I wanted the backyard to look nice and there was this looming pile of... nonsense in a corner - and I have twice previously gone over to tackle it and said... uh never mind. Wouldn't you? I mean look at it?

Yes, that ghastly pile of whatever was inherited when we moved here and I just ignored it and my husband mowed around it. It turns out once we got to hacking that it used to be a vegetable garden. Or at least there were a zillion little potatoes spawning beneath the surface when I started to hack into the soil... once we FOUND the soil. Yes I thought a little clawing at the weeds would be no problem for me. Um no this quickly turned into a family project and several tools where utilized. The weed whacker was brought out, the spade the metal rake, and most importantly the muscle.

Yes, Loving Husband happily jumped in to assist with the back breaking labor of moving stones broken pieces of concrete, that was at one point a wall, out of the way and then went to town attempt to find the earth beneath the madness. It was found and my oh my was it rocky and potato-y. There were several LARGE spiders that were less than pleased to have their home disturbed, but we trudged on through while Ace played with the dandelions in the yard. At the end of the day, we had a new wall built and an excellent planting surface awaiting some plants.

So Monday I headed to the local garden store and piled my cart with $25 worth of plants. I came home and got to work. As I was digging the holes for the plants I found a TON of rocks and so I set them aside to utilize later as a little decore around the plants. The potatoes ... well sadly they and their roots found their way to the yard waste bin. The end result was this! Even if it all dies, I'm just proud of the general landscaping accomplishment. It looks much nicer out there. Just in time for the BBQ for Ace's first birthday!