The New Backyard

Deciding where to start new blog posts from was SO HARD.

 

I mean, the last time I was regularly blogging, we were still in our old house.

I could have just started from today, but then those of you who aren't on Instagram (where I've been getting my fix since last spring) wouldn't know what the heck is going on.

I posted a little bit here and there on my blog Facebook page, but certainly not enough to keep anyone in the loop.

Do I start with the house, the kids, the yard, our new critters?  

So many choices.

I decided to start with the new yard and go from there.  It isn't quite gardening season yet, so I should have plenty of time to catch everyone up on all the new spaces.

It's a wee bit more than our previous spot.

Ha!

Our old house sat on a standard 50' x 100' lot.

Our new house is on 12 acres.

Yeehaw!

Quite a bit of that is pasture and 2 1/2 acres of it is a cider apple orchard.

So I'm obviously not gardening on all of it.  

Yet.  

I guess the backyard is as good a place as any to start.

I'll probably say this about every area, but I think this one is where I put in the most physical labor to get it ready for plants.

It. sucked. hard.

You could tell that at some point in time, it had been a bed.  There were some existing large shrubs, a good sized birch, a couple baby lilacs, and a few remaining perennials.

However, the grass and weeds had long since taken over, so it just looked like part of the lawn.

The theme in all the areas was to sheet mulch.  

I was quickly getting rid of the never ending pile of moving boxes, and a load containing three units of compost that was sitting in the driveway.

Unfortunately for me, I soon discovered that this ENTIRE area had been covered in landscape fabric.

The Devil.

Top layer was grass and weeds, second layer was bark mulch, third layer was the fabric, with established shrub roots woven into it.

Onto plan b.

I ended up digging out everything by hand.  

With a shovel.

Did I mention that it. sucked. hard?

And damn near killed me.

I peeled off and flipped most of the weedy lawn upside down. The fabric was too heavy to move with it attached.  Plus, the soil underneath everything was so depleted, it needed a lot of love if I was gonna plan on growing anything in it.

 I covered it with cardboard in some places, others I just left as is so I could plant.

Then, I hauled a zillion loads of compost.  

And then, the plants.

So. Many. Plants.

You may recall that I hauled an insane amount of plants with me from the old house.

In addition to those, I was gifted a ton of babies from the garden blogging crew when they came out to check out the new digs that first summer.

I also scored a ridiculous amount of freebies when we first moved in because of a tip from a new neighbor.

So I definitely had plants to get in the ground before winter.

I had gone about three quarters of the way along that back strip with the tear out, compost, and planting, but I was done for the year.

We moved in at the beginning of August, the weekend of the eclipse.

It was October and I was exhausted.

Did I mention it sucked?

I'm claiming it as the worst gardening job to date.

But then February came along, and it was time to start thinking about finishing up that bed.

I had to make it all the way to the massive inherited kniphofia patch.

By the middle of March, I was back at it, cursing the entire time.

Gah.

I'm twitching just looking at those pictures.

It was so friggin' awful.

There's a reason I dropped almost 20 pounds in those first few months.

But I plugged along, adding compost and plants as I went.

Did I mention the blackberries?

Sweet Jesus, the blackberries.

They're everywhere.

EVERYWHERE.

Then magically, April came and I was at the end.

By May, the fall and early spring plantings were starting to fill in.

And then it was June.

The beginning of July.

Middle of July.

End of July.

August, when I finally went after that dang kniphofia.

And last, January first, just a few weeks ago, looking forlorn.

And there you have it.

The backyard at Northrop Acres.

I'm anxious for the baby shrubs and trees to fill in, and the perennials to become more established.

As with any newly planted area, the weeds will be a nightmare for the first few years.  The space is huge, so at this point it feels like I'm constantly playing catch up to stay on top of them.  But as I gradually add more plants, more compost, more hands on, it will become more manageable.

At least that's what I tell myself.

I'm looking forward to hauling my real camera out there to document this year's successes....and failures.

I'll show ya around the front yard next.

Until then.....