The Rabbit's Garden: July 2019

Tuesday, July 23, 2019

Front yard corner tree bed 2019

Under the big tree in front of the spare bedroom window is a big tree with not much going on underneath it except weeds.

The previous owner put black plastic down around the tree and then covered that with rocks.

I want to move all those rocks and pull up the black plastic and create a shade garden bed here. I think it would be pretty but also would be better for the tree to have that plastic off its roots.

I have been poking holes in the plastic and sticking some plants in. The large plant right up front is a bleeding heart that I planted I think 2 years ago, and it has thrived in this shady spot.

There is the bleeding heart right up front.

Here is it from the side. The downspout is off because it is clogged with leaves and I need to knock them out of there!

Today I started the big job of trimming the tree and trimming the overgrown yew bush which is right next to it.

A wheelbarrow full of branch trimmings!

Already there is a lot more light under that tree. I will add some pictures here once the yew is fully trimmed and I have weeded the rocky area. Maybe I can even get to moving the rocks and pulling up the plastic this week... possibly!

Green peppers in a container 2019

Last year I planted a green pepper plant in the garden and got one, and only one, green pepper from it.

I decided to try it in a container on the driveway this year as that area has a lot more heat, and so far it is working!!

The plant itself is still small, but look at all these peppers hidden inside!

There are 5 big peppers in there and many more small ones. I think putting the pepper in a container on the driveway is the way to go!!

Monday, July 22, 2019

The retaining wall garden 2019

I am so proud of our retaining wall garden because I planted everything in here myself (with Mike's help with the daffodils) after our retaining wall was rebuilt.

When we bought the house, there was a falling down, rotted retaining wall with old and straggly spirea plants planted in it.

2016 - soon after moving in
It is hard to see how falling down this wall was from this picture, but it was built with railroad ties which had rotted and the upper portion was starting to fall.

2017
Looking out at the garden from the edge of the retaining wall.

2017
Some room for improvement ;)

2/19/2017

2/19/17
The falling down retaining wall with those old spirea bushes and landscape fabric showing though.

2/19/17

And then, we had the retaining wall rebuilt in 2017!

7/19/17
The wood wall has been taken down

7/19/17

7/25/17
Many many stone blocks!

7/25/17

7/26/17

8/4/17

8/4/17
The beautiful newly rebuilt wall. This wall is solid and not going anywhere!

8/4/17

Once the wall was done, I had the fun of planting things. My favorite is the small cherry tree I planted on the edge closest to the road. Then I planted shrubs, mostly spirea, but two weigela and one summersweet shrubs down the wall. In retrospect, I think I planted them too close together as they have grown and done very well in the past two years.

9/7/17
The tart cherry tree I planted

9/7/17

9/7/17
A summersweet bush closest to us, then a spirea, then a weigela

9/7/17
A hardy hibiscus

And the retaining wall garden today!

5/8/19
We planted daffodils and hyacinths the previous year, and the flowers were some of the earliest flowers we had blooming this spring.
The cherry tree has been protected from deer in its cylinder.

5/25/19
The cherry tree has leafed out and is so much bigger than above in 2017!

6/7/19
Mom is here!! And the irises I planted last year (2018) are in full bloom.

7/18/19
The retaining wall garden is now full of plants that have really done very well here.
Up front is a weigela, then it is a row of spirea, with these irises along the back wall.
I also planted creeping phlox in between, to hopefully spread and provide a nice groundcover so I won't need mulch forever. This bloomed in May and was beautiful but I think I forgot to take pictures of this.

7/18/19
Summersweet bush

7/18/19
One stray wild orange daylily somehow made its way in here! I need to dig that out.

6/30/19
One more view of the cherry tree and the view looking down the retaining wall.

The vegetable garden May-July 2019

Time for an update on the actual garden! Right now our raspberries are just about finished, and now cucumbers and tomatoes are starting to ripen.

A few pictures of garden itself. Thanks to Mike and Bob for putting up this lovely fence around the garden in 2017. It has been rabbit and deer free ever since. Hooray!

7/9/19
The garden with the raspberry thicket on the far end.
I need to do some serious clearing back there.

7/9/19

The squash and cucumbers have grown so much over the past 2 weeks! So have the tomatoes.

7/22/19
Zucchini, yellow squash and cucumbers up front, with tomatoes in back of those.
Followed by potatoes and climbing beans in back.
The raspberry thicket on the left.

Garden 7/22/19
Rhubarb, asparagus and strawberries to the right

The rows of tomatoes
We ate about 5 tomatoes tonight!

7/22/19
Our first ripe cucumbers! Mike and I ate one tonight and it was delicious.

7/22/19
A good looking cucumber

Tiny yellow squash starting to form.

Tiny zucchini starting to form.

The tomatoes are on their way!

7/15/19

And earlier this month we had our raspberry harvest! We picked at least 4 quarts of raspberries this year, not counting the ones we ate while picking.

7/13/19

Raspberry picking from our wild thicket is a dangerous job, though. We both ended up with some pokes from thorns or scratches. One of my goals for next year is to tame these berries somehow. I think if I get started early enough I can train them to grow upright between rows held up with twine, rather than in the giant thicket they form now.

7/13/19
Mike helping me pick berries.

These are so good just plain, or with ice cream, or frozen with milk.

Here is the strawberry patch, which we started in 2017, I think. We had a few strawberries out of here this year, maybe 1 quart or so, but I was lazy with picking these. They are very sweet and good.

7/9/19
Strawberry patch

7/9/19
Only a few strawberries left at this point.
Peak of strawberry picking was early July this year.

And even earlier in the year, in late May, we had the rhubarb. And that is our small asparagus shoots off to the left.

5/27/19
Rhubarb and asparagus

My favorite way to eat rhubarb - in a crumble!

The garden in late spring, just before it is time to plant.

Garden 5/25/19
The onions are right up front, with the unruly raspberry thicket in the back.

Garden 5/25/19
Weeding the garden in preparation for planting.

All in all, so far this early summer has been great in the garden, with everything doing great so far! There is always a lot to do, which I love. I don't always get to everything (or anything) but I love dreaming about all I can do.

The to do list for the garden includes:
-Weed
-Transplant strawberry runners which have escaped the bed
-Transplant mint to outside the fence

-Harvest onions or replant along dog run fence.
-Dig up and transplant all the daylilies

-Tame the raspberries somehow

-Prune the lilac.

-Weed the far area and clear space around the blueberry

To recap, the biggest improvement we have made to the garden so far was to improve the fencing. When we moved in, there was a low fence with strings of fishing line above it, which worked ok at keeping deer out, but poorly at keeping rabbits out. The rabbits must have found a way in somehow under parts of the fence.
So, in 2017, Mike and Bob helped me re-fence it! We bought the cedar posts at Menards, and bought 6 foot high deer fencing online. Since we have put this up, we have been able to keep the deer and rabbits out of the garden, and we can garden in peace.

5/14/17
We dug a trench a few inches deep so that the fence could be below ground a few inches to prevent rabbits from digging under the fence. Here Mike and Bob are stretching the fencing before we attached it to the posts.

5/14/17

5/14/17
Here is the large roll of fencing that we attached to the fence posts. I like that the lilac was in bloom at that time!

5/14/17
Here is Mike digging the trench for the fencing. That was not an easy job. We are enclosing quite a bit of area that was not previously enclosed, including the lilac, the raspberry thicket, and a lot of lovely purple blooming creeping charlie.