New house & gardening

We went over to the new house this weekend to do some yardwork and see what all we would want to do. There is a LOT of work to be done.  We all came home and made lists of what we want to do - just to start. *sigh* I do love projects but this is a ton.  First there is a lot, no that doesn't begin to describe it - there is a massive amount of english ivy there.  It's growing up and over the back fence and garden shed and must be pulled down before it pulls down the shed.  There's Ivy all over the front  rockery climbing the trees and pulling the front fence down too.  We pulled part of it from the front just by the entry stairs, it's a lot of work. The property is much larger than our current property and has a lot of mature plants onsite including an apple and pear tree!  I'm excited about that and with the addition of our plum and peach tree we'll have a small orchard going!  There are also a few raspberry bushes so we'll have those and our blueberries.

  Then there's building the new chicken coop.  We've decided to make it a few feet longer and wider since we plan to add 2 ducks and a few more chickens (2 I think) and we picked  a space for it.  It will be perfect, right next to the garden and on the opposite side of the house from the BBQ and patio area except there's a full grown juniper there right now...actually 4 of them.  *rolls eyes*  Fortunately they have grown sideways so you can actually walk behind them and cut them down - we'll need to remove 1 completely to make space for the run and we may end up moving them all so we can put the fruit trees there.  I'm so very thankful that we can get a chain 'saw and wood chipper from the tool library!!!  The mulch will come in quite handy. 

Once some major pruning is done, the chicken run is built and the ivy is under control (work party, anyone?!?) we should be able to do some fun things!  Jen thinks a rosemary hedge would be nice on top of the rockery and I LOVE this idea!  Also, I'm hoping to cover the front of the rock wall with some sedums, Iberis and stonecrop.  It should be really beautiful.  We would also like to make the raised beds taller and are considering using cement blocks but most likely we'll end up using the burlap since that will be free.  There are also some overgrown concord grapes that we would like to build a larger trellis for or perhaps an arbor! 

There's lots of list making and planning going on right now, I guess I'm glad to have fall quarter off from school since there will be so much to do...I'm hoping to get some help from classmates though for some of the pruning and perhaps even some plant ID...

We'll going to try to post before and after pictures but things are busy right now so we'll likely be behind. :)

....yay? sunshine!

Wow.  to expand on my last post summer has arrived with a 20 degree jump in temperature overnight.  We've gone from mid 70's (or lower!) to mid 90's.  It is HOT!  The garden is loving it - the tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini have visibly grown over the last 2 days and I'm sure we will see even more growth in the rest of the garden.  Jen just planted more seeds yesterday: bush beans, summer squash, spaghetti squash and a crazy squash (Just what IS a crazy squash?!?).  Hopefully these will all come up soon.

The chicken run door is finally built - I borrowed a jigsaw and a speed square from the tool library and even made the awesome mitered corners on the door frame and made braces with other scrap wood so it would stay square then covered it with mesh and cross brace.  All that we need now is to buy the hinges. Funny thing about building is that when something is only a 1/4" off of square (say a doorjam) it makes a huge difference in building a door.  I cut our door a 1/2" narrower than the doorjam but since it didn't entirely work  apparently it would have been better if there was a 1" difference width wise.  Who knew it made such a difference?!?  oh well, the door still works and is nice and square - it just looks odd without a square door jam.  I think I put enough braces in that it won't warp with the sun too.  Once the door is installed the run will be complete!!!

Now that most of the major projects are done I'm already off to thinking about more projects: widen the tomato bed for next year?  plant a wisteria vine on the fence? clean out the basement and make space to hang the potatoes, onions and garlic I hope to have this fall?  dig out new flower beds along the front walk and fill with bulbs, daylilies, crocosmia and peonies?  Plant more blueberries and maybe an apple tree?

Not sure what all of that we will do, I've got the wisteria vine in a bucket of water to see if it will root, planning on cleaning out the basement this next week and I will be keeping my eyes open for blueberries on sale.  We've been talking about getting some baby ducks when they are available at the feed store so we'll have to find a place to put their pool.  We found several smaller varieties we liked online but we'll probably buy whatever we can get locally so we don't have to order them online.  I don't like the idea of ordering animals through the mail - it just seems cruel especially in our hot weather right now.

We will have to update with some new pictures tomorrow.  Oh - and in some other good news the hot weather is killing the aphids infecting the plum tree, hopefully it will recover soon.

Flowers!

I thought I'd save this for it's own post, we have flowers this year!  Roses, climbing honeysuckle, gloriosa climbing lily, daffodils, peonies lilies, fritillaria and more...it's going to be beautiful when everything blooms!  Here's some pics:

This is the new bed we dug last fall, we need to make it larger so the lawn mower won't knock the flowers over, it has lilies, peonies, fritillaria, baby daffodils and thyme