Playing in the Dirt

Last weekend, Alan and Nolana came and spent 6 hours of their Saturday helping me plant a garden in my back yard. There is one small area in the back that the previous owners already had set up for a vegetable garden which already had a few volunteer onions growing in it, and there is also a large area on the opposite side of the back where they used to have a trampoline, but the tramp is now gone, and the area is just covered over with massive amounts of gravel.
When Alan and Nolana arrived, and surveyed the areas, they helped me come up with a game plan. In the little vegetable garden, we planted 4 kinds of tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow squash, zucchini, and green beans.

Little Veggie Garden
(Except for the tomatoes, which we planted as plants, we planted these veggies as seeds, so you can't really see them yet!)

In the large gravel garden, we opted to not shovel out all of the gravel, and instead we bought 10 square pots and quite a few large bags of potting soil. We set up the pots in the gravel garden, and then planted the herbs and veggies in the pots. In the gravel garden, then, we planted red, yellow, and green peppers, habanero and jalapeno peppers, lemon balm, tarragon, cilantro, green and purple sage, regular and garlic chives, parsley, spearmint, and basil.




The two kinds of chives, spearmint and lemon balm were all starts that Alan brought me from his own garden. He also brought a jostaberry start (which is a cross between a gooseberry and a black currant) and a walnut tree start, both of which we also planted in the back yard.

Jostaberry

Walnut Tree

Under the tree in the front, we planted quite a few succulent plants, also provided by Alan from his own garden, called "hens and chicks."



The final big project was the removal of two small ornamental "blooming pear" trees from the back and planting in their places a plum tree and a real pear tree.




We also dug another hole and planted a nectarine tree.


This was a lot of hard work, but was also a ton of fun. I enjoyed so much getting to spend some time with Nolana and Alan. Alan and I have a lot of interests in common, which makes for good conversation and great camaraderie. I can't thank them enough for all of their help, and I am SO EXCITED to eat my home-grown fruit, veggies, and herbs!

The only kid in the family who LOVES to play in the dirt!