The weather has been surreal the past few days. Today the high was 72 and the wind breezy, so we spent quite a bit of time outside.
It’s amazing how much easier my day is when we can spend a good part of it outside. They boys like digging in the rear garden plot, which is fine with me right now, but once it’s planted with a variety of heirloom tomatoes, bush beans, squash, cucumber, and ping-tung eggplants, I think I’m going to have to put chicken wire up around it and get them another place to dig. The chicken wire will be necessary anyway, as I’ve observed more than a few cotton-tailed creatures scurrying under our garden shed.
I thought I would take a few pictures of our back yard early on and talk about what I hope to do this summer.
We are blessed to have a huge backyard, let alone a backyard at all. When we lived in the Bay Area, having a yard usually meant a significant hike in rent, so we usually just went on walks out of our apartment or duplex. It’s unbelievable to me that we now have a 70 x 70 foot plot. The patio is nice as well for the boys to ride their bikes or scooters on. One of the things I’m hoping to do is to plant a sunflower house to the right of the shed this summer. I’ll keep you posted as I put it in and hopefully as it grows. The idea comes from a book called Roots, Shoots, Buckets, and Boots by Sharon Lovejoy. This truly is a book worth owning if you have some space and a desire to grow some things with your kids. Lovejoy does a great job of not only giving you good projects, but to create a magical place for kids to dream in the midst of nature.
This is an emerging bud from a hydrangea bush in our backyard. It didn’t really flower last summer, but then again, we moved here for good after being gone a month in the middle of one of the hottest summers the Midwest has seen in awhile, so maybe that’s why. But the bush seems to be wanting to try again, and so we’ll see how it goes. I have read that propogating hydrangeas from cuttings are not too difficult, and it would be great to expand this bush to several around our house.
This is a wooden structure that the previous owners left behind. I’m guessing it was for a tire swing, but this summer, I decided to use it as a trellis. I’m planning on attaching trellis netting to both sides of it and creating a tent made out of sweet peas and scarlet runner beans.
Yay you!!! I’m so jealous of all that space. I can’t wait to see what happens ~ and I’ll be most jealous (is that even grammatically correct?!?!) if you get your hydrangeas going well. They are definitely one of my very favorite plants!!!