yard work

It feels like summer is beginning to make its first appearances here.  The days are becoming too hot to work in the sun for long amounts of time and the evenings are perfect for lazy walks into downtown Franklin.

Last year a ton of work was done inside the house, but this is officially “the year of the yard.”  I’ve been busy planting flowers, making some new beds, and getting the vegetable garden in shape for summer.  This has required hours of time in the evenings and on weekends, but I think that the more I get established this year, the easier it will be since the beds will just require maintenance in years to come.

The flower bed on the side of the house needed some work, and I have a feeling will be a work in progress for a little while.  I extended the bed to go along the fence so I won’t have to mow there. 

Right now it’s a riot of color with roses, celosia, several salvias, dianthus, lantana, lavender, seedum, and a crape myrtle.  Might have gotten a tad carried away, but I’m hoping these will fill in the spaces as the season progresses.  The clashing pinks and reds are driving me a little crazy, but maybe the butterflies will go nuts over them.

I also extended the bed on the other side of the fence. This one is simpler with two butterfly bushes, some salvia, and a Russian sage.  Not having to mow along the fence is wonderful.  I’m planning to add a really long bed on the other side of the fence, but Lord help me, these took about 5 hours to dig out since the grass was so thick and I wanted to get rid of all the roots.  The mulch has also significantly kept the weeds at bay.

And now onto the garden I’m most excited about right now, the veggie plot!  This is what it started out as.  Rob cut some cedar stakes for me and then cut some reed fencing that was 6 feet tall into 2 foot sections.  I used some twine to secure the fencing to the posts.  This should help keep hungry creatures out, although I am about to have an all out war with some squirrels who are destroying my planters.

Over time…the beans, round zucchini, and cucumbers are starting to sprout nicely.  The peppers were starter plants and are still alive…always a good sign.  Tomatoes are slowly being added.  Some are seedlings, some are starter plants I got from a friend.

As things have been growing, the Bermuda grass that used to be the lawn has been a total nightmare.  The stuff has very deep runner roots that go below what was tilled and the only way to weed has been to dig deep with a spade and try to get the main root.  Misery!!!  I’m hoping the straw will slow the growth of the weeds.  I will not be putting straw around the tomatoes since I’ve heard that too much nitrogen from the straw breaking down is not good for them.

As the tomatoes grow, they need to be staked and this has been a dilemma for me…what to do?!  I’ve looked up several different staking methods and ideally, I would love to use the paneled cages (I already have 3), however, these are $10 apiece and the bamboo in my yard is free, so I decided to go with tripods for each plant.  I have 21 plants.  It’s insanity.  I spent all of Sunday morning cutting bamboo, cleaning it, measuring it, and making the tripods…hours of labor.

I used 6 foot pieces and tied them with twine at the top.  This was very easy and they took about a minute to assemble!  

All 21 plants now have supports and I have a roll of velcro ties that will help them stay on the stakes as they grow.  The nice thing about the bamboo is that it’s natural. It will hold up for more than one year.  It was free.  It won’t get rusty.  It’s pretty sturdy.  And, if a tornado knocks it down, I can just build another one.

So for right now, things are coming along.  The beans are doing awesome!  The round zucchini, watermelons, and cucumbers are coming up nicely, basil is growing, and the tomatoes are establishing themselves and starting to get some blooms.  There are 4 varieties: Heirloom Cherokee Purple, San Marzano, Sun Sugar, and Heirloom Giant Belgium.  While all of this could turn out to be an epic failure, it’s the first year…so I’ll see what works and try not to cry over what doesn’t.

It was 72 degrees on Saturday, which meant that after being stuck inside all winter, things got a little crazy.  In an effort to completely forget how stressful last week was at work, I threw myself into projects around the house.  It worked.  I forgot.  I even forgot how stressful this upcoming week is going to be by:

• weeding all the beds surrounding the house and cleaning the dead leaves from around the peonies and irises that are coming in.
• redoing one side of the front walk (more on that later).
• spreading more humus (not hummus) in the garden, along with 25 pounds of lime to help with acidity issues.  Rob re-tilled the garden and we are officially ready to go.
• painting the trim in the guest room and re-painting the trim the bathroom.  I would have taken a picture, but I couldn’t lift my arms.  How Michelangelo survived the Sistine Chapel, I have no idea.
• removing all the ugly white gravel and plastic mulch surrounding the whiskey barrel planters by the patio (this will be a separate blog post when it’s finished so you can get the full effect).
• chatting with not one, not two, but 6 different neighbors who walked by.  I love how friendly everyone is!  One of them said his wife would have come over to say hi, but it was her special time of the month and, “Well, we know you ain’t lazy because you’re out here all the time working on stuff.” If he had seen the inside of my house at that moment he might have changed his tune.

Tonight, I am sore and tired, and so thankful that numbers were not on my brain during my days off.  I am a firm believer in the separation of work and home life.  So I freaked out on Saturday morning when I walked in to the laundry room to find MY FIRST TOMATO plant poking up through the soil!  YAY!!!  And the chives were also coming up, but whatever, those are
easy, it’s the tomatoes I’m really worried about.  By the afternoon
several more little plants were showing up.  This is promising! Look how tiny and vulnerable they are.

Now I have to watch out for fungus gnats, which are carried in the soil and emerge as plants are watered and growing.  Also, damping off, which sounds like an STD for plants, but just means that they rot at the base of the stem and then die, a tragic end for any seedling.

So, let’s chat about the front walk.  When I moved into the house, I redid the front walk by tearing out the ugly red begonias the landscapers had planted and planting all the perennials I’d been keeping at my apartment.  You can revisit that adventure here.  So on Saturday, I tore out the other side of the walk, removing the old mulch, gravel, and leftover liriope (lee-ree-ope).  Ugly stuff.  I fought a battle with those plants, but they finally admitted defeat and came out of the ground.  I transplanted them to a side garden, but I need to come up with another solution…maybe around the base of some of the trees.  Not sure yet.  Here is the lonely, sad side of the walk, sans pretty flowers.

I went to Lowes and fell in love with these little pincushion plants called armeria (ar-mee-ree-a).

The “specialist” in the garden center at Lowes could tell me nothing about this plant other than, “My wife and I have these and did nothing to them and they grew.”  When asked about pruning the apple trees I’d purchased there last fall, he replied, “You should look online about that.  You’d be surprised what you can find on the internet these days.”  Now, all of you have heard me rant about the garden centers around here and the lack of trained staff therein.  I told my dad tonight that I immediately discredit someone when I realize they know less about plants than I do (I have a lot to learn).  It’s not until someone says something that proves they have legit cred when it comes to gardening that I get excited.  So I left Lowes and went online to check out armeria and apple tree pruning.  Online armeria are described as “moderately difficult.”  Drat.

Armeria are small, compact, and have fun little clumps of pink flowers.  They can supposedly tolerate full sun, salty climates, and resist deer.  I’m skeptical.  I wish plant labels would specify the type of “full sun” a plant can take.  Like, are we talking about a Long Island full sun, a Texas full sun, a Tennessee full sun???  Because let me tell you, I literally watched plants fry in the sun last year.  Fry.  Like a chicken finger.  Or a kale chip (for all you vegetarians out there).  The summer was brutal, and I dread to think what this summer has in store for us.

So if the armeria lets me down, I might consider hens and chicks, but let’s hope they can take it.  This is how it ended up looking.  Mini pine chips make everything look better.  Huge fan of the pine chips.

The purple leaf plums in the front yard are just starting to bloom.  They are beyond lovely!  It is so exciting to finally be able to experience the house in the spring and literally watch it come alive.

More flower pictures to come!!!  Daffodils are about to start blooming, tulip bulbs are sprouting, allium bulbs have surfaced…it’s about to get real, people.