Josh and Scott bought me a 15 foot dogwood tree for Mother's day this year. It turns out a tree that big needs a really large hole. Time to break out the shovels.
After several weekends spent weeding, it was time for mulch to try to protect all of our hard work. While J isn't the greatest at telling the weeds apart from the good stuff, he loves dumping mulch.
Unfortunately, most of his mulch ends up on the bushes instead of around them, but eh, it was a good effort.
We're taking advantage of the one sunny spot in our shady lot to grow vegetables. Since all of our woodland creatures would like to do their feasting first, Scott built me a few raised beds with a surrounding fence. While the lettuce and the parsley didn't make it before the gate got built, the peppers and tomato plants are still thriving and needed watering. Good thing we know someone who knows how to use the hose. Since the gate has now been erected, today we planted three more varieties of peppers and tomatoes, squash, snap peas, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, onions, blackberries, and strawberries. With the aid of our good farm help we should have a nice harvest in a few weeks.
Since we watched most of our acre of lawn burn up last year rather than suffer the expense of trying to keep it watered through a long dry summer, this year we had a plan for several rain barrels to obtain a free water supply. We've been amazed at how much water we can collect off our roof in just a thirty minute rain storm and even with five 55 gallon barrels for collection they are almost always full. Our gardener knows how to put it to good use though to keep things fresh and since it's "free" water we don't mind all the excess that runs off while he tries to get the job done.
