Sunday, May 30, 2010

I love my garden . . .

I love my garden . . . I love my garden . . . I do, I do!  But, this time of year is the REALLY hard work -- and it is kickin' my . . . well you get the idea.  Still it is nice to be able to see progress.  Just a bit more weeding and clearing out and it will be time for planting.  We do a combination of plants and seed.

Here are some updated photos . . . 


This bed will be filled with culinary, medicinal, and aromatic herbs and plants.  Dividing it into four sections will help with the care and harvesting.  On top of that, each section is in one of the four directions.  What I find interesting is that it was not designed with that in mind -- I only just realized it when I uploaded the picture!


This area is dedicated to food -- with the exception of the salvia already there.  We hope that the wall will give some shelter from the beating sun of New Mexico.  Last year we tried sun screens over the plants -- it kept them from burning but the vegetables were nothing to write home about.  Gardening is all about experimentation -- we'll see how well this works.




Its the 'puppy pad'  the only grassy bit on the property.  We originally put in a small patch for the dogs.  It was such a success, we decided to enlarge it this year.  The sod struggled all last year and didn't revive this year.  We are going to try grass for one more year -- if it doesn't take, it will be time to attempt another kind of ground cover that is resistant to being walked, run, and rolled on.



This is our raised bed(s)  The larger one is dedicated to food (and some herbs that were left over from our first growing season in the house).  The smaller one was added last year and is specifically for herbs.  Still in the cleanings stages here with the north side of the larger bed still needing to be taken care of and the small bed still covered for the winter.  Thank the gods and goddesses for a three day weekend!  Hopefully all will be prepped and planted by Tuesday!

Despite the fact that we are still developing large elements of the garden and it takes a lot of heavy work, I really do love my garden.  It is wonderful to get my hands dirty (I rarely wear gloves so that I can feel the soil in my fingers).  It is always a calming experience to work with the plants and an exhilarating moment when I notice something new.  Last year we planted some berry bushes.  Only one bush actually survived and this year there are tiny little berries starting to appear -- amazing!







5 comments:

mxtodis123 said...

It's lovely. Oh, how I miss mine. Every Sunday was a weeding day. Like you, I did both seeds and plants. I never used a pesticide which is why I was always weeding. I had two pound cucumbers...and enough veggies to give away to the neighbors.
Mary

RA said...

Your garden is beautiful! Keep these posts coming, lets us see how it develops... and I can pretend it's mine! :)

suzanne said...

It's looking good. I find gardening very therapeutic. It is indeed back-breaking work at first but the pay-off is wonderful :)

ONe PiNK FiSH said...

I wish my backyard was as pretty as yours. It has all the potential but none of the appeal.

The darn grackles are eating my herbs and veggies. Best garden to date and the birds take over.

Bogaman said...

Great looking garden. Looks like you've put a lot of work into it. X.