A Backyard Update

I'm going to tell you right now that this is not going to be a pretty post. It ends in pretty but everything else is really, really dirty. And it's a lot of photos, so if you're a picture person, you're in luck. Over the last month, hubby and I (but let's be honest, mostly I) have been working on our yard to get it exactly the way I want it. I guess since I want it a certain way, I'm the one who has to do most of the work, and that's okay with me. Take a look at the pictures to see how far we've come. First I wanted to show you how I dug out a garden bed on a Saturday afternoon. I was sooo tempted to make raised beds, but I really wanted to see what I have to work with first, before I started building up. If this year isn't as successful, raised beds will come next year.

Remember this? Ew. My plan was to make this into a vegetable garden, but it wasn't nearly as big as I wanted. So I decided to cut out a second area.

This is the second part of the garden laid out with string. I wanted there to be a path between the two so I could walk between. The path opens up on the right side to the house.

I staked it out using leftover wood from my trellis tutorial.

My neighbors don't go out much..

I felt it was significant to document how long it took me to do this. This is one hour in.

Two hours in (I promised myself I wouldn't cheat and get that little piece of sod out before taking the two hour picture)

After mixing bags and bags of manure, peat, and top soil into the clay soil.

This is what it looks like today. I planted the new bed a few weeks ago. We cleared out the jelly bean (the other bed) of the lilies, daisies and yuccas and I just fenced it and planted it two days ago.

That's it! Everything seems to be doing really well, but I still might make some raised beds by using stone for next year.

We relocated the jelly bean plants to next to the carport. They actually survived and are all going to flower this year!

Tornado warnings - it's why you tie down your trellis

I'll finish up this post with one of my favorite photos of the year. These are the roses that are next to our house. It was a great surprise to see what they would look like.