Our huge Rose of Sharon bush outside the dining room window is in bloom. Honestly, as beautiful as it is, I wasn’t going to do a post about it because, really, it’s just another picture of a pretty flower.
But then I saw a fuzzy bumble bee pollinating the blossoms. He was completely dusted in pollen, so I of course had to take his picture.
It may seem sappy, but seeing this industrious fellow–and the hummingbrids which also love the Rose of Sharon–reminds me that mother nature is pretty cool.
The rainy spring and the hot summer have conspired to produce a bumper crop of raspberries this year at the farm.
Black raspberries grow wild on the bank outside of the barn.
Ralph keeps a careful eye on them and performs quality control inspections during picking.
Just to the east of the barn–in the spot where I want to put the vegetable garden–is a patch of red raspberries.
I’m going to try and preserve some of these canes when we dig out the garden, so we can continue with our raspberry bounty each summer.
I’d love to transplant the black ones into the garden as well. Does anyone have any idea if they would survive a move? Any tips for transplanting? The black ones are smaller, seedier and sourer than the red ones. Do you think if I watered them or fertilized them they’d plump up?
I said at the beginning of the week that I’m declaring the start of July as the end of phase 1 of landscaping. We all know that the end of one thing is the start of something else, so it is also the beginning of… you guessed it… phase 2.
Yes, I still have things to finish up from phase 1, but let’s not get technical here.
For phase 2, I’m going to use the same technique that I did in phase 1. Walk out the front door and start with the first thing I see. Except this time instead of turning right, I’m going to turn left. Earth-shattering strategy, I know.
So what will I find when I turn left? Something that looks a little like this. (Our roof is not as green IRL as it appears in this photo).
From a distance it may not look that bad, but in reality it’s an overgrown jungle of spirea and ferns. I’m a variety is the spice of life kind of woman, so I need a little more diversity in my garden. I’ll be digging out a decent number of the plants. They will not go to waste though. (Remember the massive turnaround garden that needs plants?)
However, gardening here is never as simple as just weeding, pruning and transplanting. Take these rocks for example (and yet another plastic plant pot that escaped the earlier purge).
Every single existing flower garden on the property is edged in rocks like this. I’m sure it looked lovely at one point. However, over the years, the rocks have sunk just far enough into the ground to become a complete hazard for the lawnmower. Plus, they’re not doing anything to keep the weeds or grass out of the garden. I would rather edge the garden every year with a spade and be able to get the lawnmower right up to the edge of the plants than deal with these rocks.
Rocks–specifically moving rocks–has been the major theme of landscaping this year. Wiley and I will spend some more quality time, moving loads and loads of rocks back to the pile behind the barn.
Let’s see. What else is there about this garden? Follow me down this garden path and let’s find out.
Note to self: Add weeding and remove broken patio slabs to the to-do list. Oh, and fill in the pit at the end of the path.
Oh look. Another plastic plant pot.
This pit is the spot where the wood stove chimney came out of the basement. We’ve removed the wood stove, patched the hole in the wall and tarred the foundation. Now I need to deal with the pit. It’s about 3 feet deep and is usually home to frogs or, when I was taking the picture above, a camera shy garter snake. Perhaps this is a place to dispose of some of the rocks. Provided of course I rescue any creatures first.
If I follow this garden around the corner of the house to the north side, I’ll find more rocks (what else?) and more patio slabs from where the old oil tank used to be. If I follow it around to the back side, things get really wild.
The back gardens will likely be phase 3. No ETA for that yet, though.
Do you have any advice for plants that will add some diversity to my spirea and ferns? Or tips for transplanting? I tend to stick them in the ground and water the heck out of them. What’s edging your gardens? Anyone else have any “special” features in your gardens, like a pit?
Friday morning at work, a colleague who reads my blog regularly marveled at how much Matt and I have accomplished at the farm so far. I didn’t totally agree. Sometimes I see the difference that we’re making. Sometimes I just see the things left undone and the rest of the to-do list.
July does feel like a bit of a milestone to me, though. A turning point. Or a halfway mark. So I have decided to declare it the end of phase 1 of this year’s major project–landscaping–and I have decided to take a look at what we’ve done so far. If you’re interested in a refresher, here’s my previous progress report or the to-do list.
My focus has been the immediate area around the house. I used the very thoughtful technique of walk out the front door, turn right and start there. I slowly worked my way around to the side of the house. So the smaller of our two front gardens has been weeded and a new border of grass has been established.
Still to do: Put those poor plants that have been living in plastic pots for at least a year and a half in the ground. Transplant some other plants to fill in some of the gaps in this garden, and maybe give the yew and the Rose of Sharon a hair cut.
Around the corner from the front garden, we come to a creation I’m particularly proud of, the well garden. At the beginning of the spring, this area was a heap of hard-packed dirt strewn with rocks and overgrown with weeds. After digging everything out (including two window wells last year which were unnecessary after we bricked over the broken basement windows), leveling off the dirt, edging it with rocks (some really, really big rocks that required the help of Matt and his Dad to position), transplanting some plants, repositioning the downspout, installing a hose hanger and seeding the grass, it is starting to look like an actual garden.
Still to do: Convince the plants to grow. It’s a little hard to see, but I’ve actually planted quite a lot in this garden. I may do a bit more, but I’m trying to restrain myself, because I’m pretty sure once these plants take off, this garden is going to be pretty lush–just what I want.
Let’s go away from the house for a moment across the driveway to the fire pit. This really wasn’t a fire pit. It was more of an area where previous owners burned things. Matt and I have used it a lot as we’ve been cleaning up brush and lumber from the property. However, heaps of ash and brush wasn’t the nicest visual to see when I opened the front door or drove up the driveway. The brush I was able to relocate to a new burn area I’ve established behind the drive shed. The ash got spread around and leveled–and then I went back and forth over it with a big magnet to pick up all of the nails and screws (and hinges, door knobs and other metal) that were mixed in. The rock pile that I discovered buried in ash was picked up and dumped in the main rock pile behind the barn–talk about a dirty job.
Still to do: Make sure all of the metal has been picked out of the ash. Mix some manure and soil in with the ash so that grass might actually grow and seed it. Relocate the lawn chair and bench that were plopped beside the fire pit. Relocate the remaining large logs and lumber that were stacked waiting to be burned. Get rid of the dirt pile.
Between the fire pit and the house is the biggest undertaking of the year, the turnaround. This former mountain goat territory has been leveled, fertilized with loads and loads of manure and rototilled. I built a brick pathway across the middle of the garden and planted some bushes, hostas, trees, tomatoes and lettuce.
Still to do: Finish the pathway–I need 60-80 more bricks and sand to fill the joints in between. Put a bench beside the path. Pull the weeds that have sprung up. Plant a whole lot of plants. Seriously. This thing is going to eat plants.
So it’s probably obvious from this post that I can’t just focus on what we’ve done so far. Although looking at the photos above, I am able to see the transformation happening. Slowly, ever so slowly, it’s starting to look a little more like the picture in my head (or on my Pinterest board).
How are you doing on your summer to-do list? Are you looking ahead at what’s yet to do? Anyone have any tips for living in the moment and appreciating what I’ve done so far?
For years, I have wanted to have a Canadian flag flying at my house on July 1. This year, I finally do.
Happy Canada Day everyone.
The first day of summer meant the first harvest of the year on the farm.
The field behind the driveshed had been mowed earlier in the week, and by the time I came home on Friday, the hay was dry and had been mounded into long rows ready for baling.
As soon as I got out of the car, I could hear the clanking of machinery in the big field. Matt and I walked out to see what the commotion was.
Two big tractors were baling the hay. Unlike last year’s first cut when we had big round bales, this year we had massive rectangle bales. Allow Matt–all six feet of him–to illustrate the scale.
As best I could tell, each of these huge hay blocks is made up of about 21 smaller size rectangle bales. For those not familiar with hay, it’s not any one plant. Each hay bale is made up of a variety of grasses, clover, flowers and other plants. Last weekend, when I walked out to the back field, I snapped some shots of the most frequently occurring grasses.
I’m not knowledgeable enough about haying to tell you what any of these grasses are. According to the farmer who manages our fields, we have a good crop of hay for this first cut thanks to a good amount of rain this spring and some doses of fertilizer earlier in the season.
Just like people have to mow the grass on their lawn weekly, the hay will grow back, and we should be able to have a second cut–or maybe even a third–in one year. Something I learned last year that surprised me was that the second cut is usually better–as in more nutritious–than the first.
So this scene may repeat yet this year.
How did you mark the first day of summer?
We’re definitely not in the emerald city, but last night somewhere over the emerald fields and out beyond the verdant green forest, we had a beautiful rainbow.
It has been a very rainy week—a rainy spring, in fact—so I’m hoping this rainbow is a sign that the weather is taking a turn for the better.
Fortunately, the farm is not plagued by any flying monkeys. However, we do have enough mosquitoes to carry off a small dog or a full grown woman, so heading out into the hay fields to take pictures of rainbows is hazardous.
Raindrops, mosquitoes, even flying monkeys, bring it on.
There is absolutely no place like home.
Anybody able to identify these pretty pink posies? They’ve popped up at the corner of the driveshed. I have no idea whether they’re wild or domestic. I do think they’re extremely pretty, however.
Please gaze upon my bliss.
Yes, that’s right. My definition of bliss is a brick pathway. So what?
But isn’t it so pretty? I realize some of you who voted for the traditional brick pattern–or “running bond” as I learned from a commenter–may not agree that this looks lovely. The vote came out very close, which really surprised me: 63% herring bone to 38% brick. I honestly thought herring bone would be the clear favourite.
I chose to go with the herring bone after spending a few days looking at the layouts that I’d mocked up last weekend. I just decided that I really, really liked the way it looked.
Laying the brick in the herring bone pattern and getting the bricks to bend smoothly around the curve was a bit more challenging than it would have been if I’d chosen another pattern, I’m sure, but I just fudged the spacing between the bricks as I needed to.
I still have to fill all of those spaces with sand. I found two bags of something called “magic sand” in one of our junk piles. The description said that it was a polymer infused sand made to fill the joints between paving stones. That sounded like just what I needed so I dumped the bags onto the bricks and managed to fill the joints for the first three feet of pathway. I’ll pick up the rest of the sand this week and hopefully finish off the path next weekend.
I say hopefully because along with needing more sand, I also need a few more bricks. What might be a little hard to see in the top photo is that as the path heads into the shade, about six feet from the end, I ran out of brick.
I knew I was going to be short, and I actually made it much farther across the turnaround than I expected to. Apparently 362 bricks are just not enough. They are enough to make me blissfully happy though.
Remember this picture from my 2013 home goals?
This is my inspiration for the garden I’m building on the turnaround at the front of the house. Lush. A little bit wild. A beautiful brick walkway winding through.
Honestly, the path is an excuse to use up some of the piles of bricks that we have lying around the farm. But, it does have two additional benefits: the path will save us from having to walk all the way around the turnaround when we want to get to the other side (it’s farther than you might think) and it will be an attractive feature at the front of the house (I hope).
The path is next up on the landscaping list. I’ve dug out the route across the turnaround and gathered my bricks. Now I’m just trying to decide how to lay them: trendy herring bone or traditional brick pattern.
If I go with the straight brick pattern, I’ll probably do six courses, not the five that are pictured here. If I go with the herring bone, this is pretty much what it’s going to look like. I’m not going to cut the bricks, so the edge will be a bit ragged. It will probably be hidden eventually by all of the lush plants, but that might take a little while.
I think I know what you’re all going to say, but I’m going to put it to a vote nonetheless. What do you think?
For those who might be concerned by the photo above, I am not going to lay the bricks directly on the dirt. I’m planning a base of sand, which we also just happen to have a huge pile of lying around. I’d use gravel, but the gravel in our pile (yes, we have one of those too) is a bit too large to provide a really stable base.
No matter what pattern I end up using, I’m planning on leaving about a half inch gap between the bricks. Does anyone have any experience with polymeric sand? I’ve heard that it’s good for filling the spaces between the bricks.
Feel free to expand on your opinions on polymeric sand, the beauty of herring bone, dos and don’ts of brick laying, fast growing plants and any other topic that strikes you in the comments. I appreciate any advice.
Home on 129 Acres 