A bit of a break

Our street has been redone this week, with all the noise, dust, and tearing up of things that this entails. I haven't gotten a whole lot done on the garden ... except I got some inspiration about my driveway planting.

So today I marked out the boundaries and decided that this will need a bit of a raised area/retaining wall (a foot high at the most, so not a huge deal), as it's right next to a drainage swale/culvert. My husband kindly went to Home Depot and got some rebar for me.

Rain, rain

It rained like crazy the last few days, so today I got to play in the mud. :)

By which I mean I pulled weeds and dug up more Virginia creeper and planted cabbages and strawberries around the magnolia tree, and more strawberries by the crazy tree.

Just looking at and feeling the mud here I can see why they call this clay, that's exactly what it feels like. I had to soak my gloves to get the mud out of them.

In the backyard I planted more asparagus (this time I planted a variety called "Purple Passion") and harvested more snow peas and some little orange cherry tomatoes that are really sweet.

There's a story about these tomatoes -- I very seldom buy tomato seeds anymore, just save seeds from tomatoes I buy. Since most commercial tomatoes are hybrid, you never know what you're going to get. I've never seen orange cherry tomatoes before, but I'm definitely saving the seeds from these because they are really good.

My rose bushes

Got a lot done today ... had two people come pull out Virginia creeper for me and take it home (a win-win situation if ever I saw one), and I also dug out about half of the elm saplings which are trying to take over my yard.

It was a gorgeous day, cool, sunny, with a slight breeze -- perfect for working outside. I'll leave you with some pictures of my two rose bushes.

Hope you had a great day.

Related pages:
How to plant roses

Rosemary hedge, among other things

Well, it's almost straight.

The rosemary hedge ("Hill Hardy") is finally in. It took me a while to get the Virginia creeper out of the area enough for me to plant (as in over several days), but it's looking good.

I always felt that my porch was too exposed; this will give it a bit of an enclosed feel. And I love rosemary.

I've still got so many things to put in ... cabbages, beets, and I'm considering hostas around the crazy tree, as it's pretty shady under there and that will keep the weeds down. So many plants, so little time. :)

Related pages:
You Can Have Edible Garden Hedges!
Why I Think All Edible Landscapers Should Be Growing Rosemary