Progress

I thought I would do one of my garden "before and after" posts for you. However I will be comparing this year to last year.  Amazingly enough it doesn't look like the same area, you'll be surprised.  I'm still learning about the amount of sun the various parts get since as the sun moves the big tree covers more of the bed.  I've decided that to know truly how much sun I should try to document at which point in the day the shadow covers each area.  This way I will be able to determine better where to put plants that need more sun and other that prefer more shade.

It's also been a job to take care of the milk weed type plants that we have in this yard.  My father-in-law loves them, and so to placate him I've chosen to keep some as feature plants, but the go to seed early and are pretty prolific, so I have been trying to make sure to cut off the flower/seed parts as soon as they appear.  They also have a rather long spongy tap root that will break off if you don't pull it right or dig deep enough around them during their removal.  The problem with this is that the the remainder of the root will inevitably grow a new shoot and leaves the following year and then you have to try to dig them up again.  A problem I didn't quite grasp last year, and so now the area that I clean up last year has a number of them that have grown back and I am slowly getting them out.

Mosquito season has officially arrived and gardening at about any time of day in our back yard is tricky as we have a canal just 10 ft behind our back fence.  I'm not sure how our neighbor's sons who are always out building and gardening handle it, because for some reason the bugs seem to love me.  So now I'm resorting to working in long sleeves and pants with lots of bug spray.  My husband jokes some times that he's going to buy me a hat that has a mesh that hangs and protects your face just like a beekeeper hat.

Anyway, enough chatter, and on to the before and after shots! 

2010

2011

2010

2011

2010

2011

I hope that you have enjoyed examining my work so far.  It's been grueling but awesome.  I can't wait until I can see what the next year brings with the garden!

~Fraise