Friday Photo Shoot Out: Gardens (part 2)

Here we are. Not exactly the meticulous order of the Jardin du Coq. More the yard of somebody with precious little time to get out in it. Of course, Natalie here is out in it all the time, but she only ever takes care of the mice and birdlings. Won't catch her with a mower.

Yeah, it's up to my knees. In a month it'll be up to my hips in spots. My friends mock me heartily for the state of the garden, but I don't really mind. There's no way I'll ever have a neatly mowed lawn beneath the fruit trees and a neatly rowed vegetable patch off to the sunny side. That's not what I want in a garden anyway.
It's been nearly two years since I moved here, and the yard has not been mowed since. It is returning to a state of meadow. Still, in a nod to having a small patch all nice and neat, I've planted a series of bushes (rhododendrons, azaleas, a couple of others whose names escape me (I never was much for botany!)) near the house, and will do my best to keep up with mowing just this little part. Yes, I have a mower now. With some surprise, I discovered that my local home-improvement store does still sell hand-mowers. Not only will I not be polluting or plugging in, I'll be getting a workout. Tant mieux!

Here's what I've done of the mowed patch. You can't cut grass that's lying on its side, I discovered, so mostly I got down and ripped it up by hand, then let it recover a day before coming through with the mower. It's patchy from being let go so long, but now the sun can get all the way to the ground, it'll fill in the spaces.
The apricot tree that shades the lawn patch is fully laden with fruit this year. On Saturday I'm going to hurry out and buy a food dehydrator, because I love cooking with dried apricots (and just eating them). Last year there was enough to make just 4 pots of jam in addition to what I ate fresh. This year that would be way too much jam. Though I will be making extra apricot-red currant to hand around as gifts.

Stalk the mice, girls, not each other.

This is the vegetable patch. Really. And in fact there are already vegetables growing in it, aside from the edible dandelions. Up at the house-end, there's thyme and rosemary and marjoram and two spindly tomato plants.
In the middle under the plum tree that I would pull out if I owned the place, is a HUGE rhubarb. Three weeks ago it was barely putting out baby leaves and now look at it. Just imagine July!

Two hours with the pitchfork and I've turned over enough ground for a first planting. I seeded a row of sweet corn and lots of radishes. Depending on the rain this weekend, I hope to get this veg bed extended all the way to the rhubarb, then put in a central bed and one along the left side. That gives me three long aisles of tomatos, green beans, peas, corn, radishes, onions, etc. Farther down maybe some squash and cukes but last year they never came to anything.

This is the front garden. Doesn't look like much yet! But the roses have really taken off since I took the picture (just last weekend!) and this weekend I hope to get some purple alyssum in as a ground cover.

So that's the garden, Sciencegirl style. The first year I lived here I kept a gardening journal which I posted last year. For those of you who hadn't found me yet, it's here . Be warned - it's long.