A turn about the yard

We are all doing much better now and spent much of the weekend working on the back yard. I love working on the inside of the house but the spring weather is too much of a draw and luckily, there is a lot to do outside too! It's also easier to work with Lucy outside since she gets distracted by grass and dirt and gives us a bit more space. Inside she practically crawls on top of us to see what fun things we are up too.

We have many many plans for the backyard, too many in fact. But a while back Craig and I walked around and made a list of all the things we even dreamed of doing. It was long. But that was okay. It gave us a start and allowed us to sort out where the different zones of our yard should be (play, entertaining, garden, etc). We don't want to work really hard to install raised beds one year only to find out that the spot we picked is the only one where chickens will work so we have to move them.

Once we had an idea of what and where we wanted to work, we had to deal with the when. After prioritizing, we came up with a three year plan. I'm sure our three year plan will be evolving and it will probably take more than three years to complete, but at least it is a start. It also lessened the stress since we know we have a plan of action and will get to everything in due time. This year we are focusing on the vegetable gardens, berry planting and getting our deck/patio outfitted with a grill and table so we can start entertaining more.

Here is a shot of the backyard. It's all weird looking because I made a panorama with photoshop but it gives you a good idea of the layout as long as you ignore the depth issues and imagine the pictures wrapping around you.



1) The vegetable garden. Craig finally finished up the raised beds this weekend! He has been working on them for a while but he doesn't have much time after Lucy goes to bed before it gets dark. Also, they are on a hill so while the assemble was fast, the installation and leveling was a pain. But they look amazing and should last a while. We just need to order our topsoil and compost. (In front of the veggie garden are pallets that make up our compost bin but we don't have enough to fill the beds so we will order it and use ours later on). We are going to try out hand at tomatoes, onions, beets, corn, green beans, lettuce and cucumber (garlic too but that is not until fall). There is also a bird feeder and bath over there too.

2) Strawberries go here! Yum. Of course, we will have to be patient but I think it will be worth it.

3) Here is the Lucy zone. This space is great because it is flat and while it is sunny in the morning, it is nice and shaded during the hot afternoons. It isn't really getting much attention this year in terms of work, but I have a feeling we will be playing here quite a bit this summer. Eventually we will be putting some sort of play house here next to the little well (that covers up our actual well). There might even be room here for a baby pool or sand box but for now it is home to Lucy's little farm playground.

I had been looking for a little playground like this on Craiglist after I saw  John enjoying his but I couldn't find anything. Then Saturday we found this one for free on a curb. What luck! I had originally thought I would let Lucy take over the little garden bed but Craig planted tulips last fall (you can just see them starting to peek up) and I love tulips so we will have to see how unselfish I am when the time comes.

4) A collaborative project with our neighbor is to install a gate here. Right now neighbor J and I have to hop the fence or walk down around to the busy road in order to visit each other. Neither option is ideal since we both have kiddos with us. Neighbor J has skills and can hop the fence in a skirt while wearing her cute chunky monkey of a 7-month old in a mei-tai but I'm not as brave. Both of us think that a gate would be a good addition.

5) Our clothesline area and soon to be home to blackberry bushes. We had to do some layout rearranging since we didn't realize that blackberry bushes get as tall as they do. But this new location should be ideal. Those windows are only our garage windows so it isn't a big deal if the bushes block them a tad.

Other than that, we will just be working on general yard maintenance. The previous owner took meticulous care of his yard but he used a lot of Scotts to do it (and even left us the schedule :-) but we will be trying a more organic approach. Eventually the yard should be healthier and less work but this first couple years will be a shock to it's chemical dependent self and it will probably look awful and need a bit more tlc. Craig's going to be re-seeding a couple areas and working together with our other neighbor on the mole issue. Moles give me the creeps so I hope they are successful since I love my backyard and want to be able to enjoy it!