Gardens in full bloom

 All of our gardens are going crazy. They will need some major cutting back and redistributing this fall.

 4th of July buntings are out.

Planters and Gardens

 We got all of our planters planted and our hanging baskets up. We added a few annuals to the garden beds as well. Everything seems to be thriving.

 These new garden beds in the side/backyard turned out great. They have nice colors and have filled in since being planted last year.

 Our watering helper.

Garden Update

 Our back garden beds are looking good! They have been weeded and mulched and are ready for adding some annuals in the next few weeks.

The backyard space is so much nicer and more useable now. And we get this beautiful view off of the upper patio. We have been watching sunsets up there the last few nights before Sam goes to bed.

 We planted our vegetable gardens too. Beans, peas, lettuce, carrots, beets, leeks, and one tomato plant. We also have parsley, cilantro, and chives, as well as strawberries and rhubarb.

First warmer day

We had one of our first warm days last weekend so Sam Poppy and I headed out to weed the garden for a little bit. Obviously Poppy was the only one who spotted the camera.

Grass in the back yard!

OK, so there is no grass there yet. But the grass seed has been sown. This last weekend Kristen and I made 4 trips in the truck to pickup compost to spread over the back yard prior to sowing the grass. Every time we do this it is a time consuming process to get it down to the yard. First the truck is parked at the top of the patio and the compost is unloaded into the wheelbarrow. This is wheeled only about 20 feet to the patio where it is dumped. From there we use a chute to transfer the soil from the patio to the wheelbarrow down below. Here is a picture of the chute.

Once the wheel barrow is full it was moved to a spot on the yard and dumped. This resulted in quite a spotted effect.

And once it has been spread out and seeded with grass.

And of course our little helper Samuel was there.

Plants in the Garden

 

We finally got the rest of the plants in the ground. It is a strange assortment of clearance bushes and leftovers from previous year's baskets at the moment. We plan on dividing up some of our flowers from the front and adding them to the bed. We will also plant some new plants next spring.

 

 The plants were surrounded by manure then the bed was covered in a fine bark mulch.

 

Tyler finished spreading the left over dirt on the lawn and filling in low spots. We still need to seed it and pick up a few remaining pieces of trash/compost.

Back Garden Bed - Second Layer

We started to flatten out the soil in the back garden bed and realized that we would probably be taking away too much soil in the back corner around the base of the fence posts. So, we decided to put in a second level into the garden bed for the back area. Here you can see the raised area in the back.

And a close up of the corner with the second layer of bed. You can also see the lanterns that we picked up for the steps.

 

Back garden bed wall finished

The last of the blocks were put up on the wall. The last two rows were glued into place with construction adhesive and tapped down with the dead blow hammer.

 

Here is what the finished course looks like.

 

And here is a view from the yard side.

 

The back step to go into the house is going to have a small step so the blocks were glued in place to support the tread.

Next up was moving that big pile of dirt and regrading it around the yard.

It took quite a few shovels but here it is graded out over the back area. Next up we just need to put down some grass seed.

Back Garden Bed Wall

Both Kristen and I are still trying to get over our colds but we were able to get some of the back garden bed wall done over the weekend. The first step was to level the bottom of the pit and put in about a 3-4 inch base under the wall stones. Here you can see the trench after leveling and filling with 5/8" clean stone.

Then the stones were laid and were seated with a dead blow mallet. Each one was checked for level both along and across the wall. Here you can see the first stones laid.

And the whole first course laid.

Once the first course is down the others proceed quite quickly. The last couple will take a little time because they will be glued in place to lock the top of the wall. Here is a picture of the second course laid.

Back Garden Bed

We worked on defining the shape of the back garden bed that will take up the corner along the fence and the steps up to the back patio. There was a big mound of dirt from creating the wall so a cut was made through it where the wall will go. The top of the stakes represent a level point about 6 inches below where the top of the wall will be.

Pavers were laid down in it to look at the shape from multiple angles. Here is the view from above.

And from the backyard side.

We also picked up a planter and some fall plants to put up on the patio. You can see that we are still brushing around the sand to fill in the cracks on the patio.

Garlic from the garden

We picked some of the garlic from the garden the other day. These came from a couple of cloves that we did not get out of the ground last year. After picking we let the cloves sit out in the sun for a couple of days to harden the skin. The original cloves were elephant and these ones turned out quite big.

Stairs to the top done!

The last couple of stairs to the top of the patio from the landing still had to be finished up. When we were working on the stairs we knew that there was going to be about three steps up and it worked out perfectly. First the area under the stairs was brought level with the pavers on the patio.

The next step was to cut the blocks for the base course. These had to be cut for both length and height (the bottom blocks were not full height). Here is a picture of the cut end of a block.

Here is a picture of setting out the bottom course. You can see in this picture that I was screwing up by making the stairs only two steps!... had to go back and fix that.

Next, rebar was pounded into the holes and the blocks were locked in place with gravel.

Here is a picture once all of the courses have been installed.

Next up the treads were placed on the steps. Only the top step needed to be trimmed where it interfaced the concrete patio because this edge is not very straight.

Here is what the new steps look like from the kitchen window.

Here is what it looks like from the area between the house and the garage.

And from the backyard. Next up we will be working on the new back garden bed at the base of the retaining wall.