A bit of gardening

One of my goals for this summer (from an unrealistically lengthy and elaborate to-do list) was to replace the weedy, gravely section of our backyard with a new patio. There used to be an old cabin at the creek's edge, which was torn down after my parents built our house. The circular driveway became a large section of the back lawn, but it was never very successful as the soil was too shallow. Add to that a couple of very dry summers where we didn't water enough, and eventually only the dandelions were thriving (and moss - how do we have moss in dead dry lawn?)

I've built a brick patio before, so I knew the basics. What I didn't figure in was the extreme hardness of a driveway packed down by 40+ years of cars, and my extreme inability to put down the knitting needles/spinning fiber/loom/book/TV remote and actually work on it.

Roni got it started (in March, I think) by digging out a section near the steps. Which then languished until it grew very, very weedy. After a pointed conversation in July, he rented some machinery thingie (I didn't see it, but apparently you stand on it and it somehow makes weedy dirt into ragged weedy dirt piles) and made the spot bigger. Which is when it became apparent that neither one of us is all that energetic, and it was going to cost a lot to keep renting the machinery thingie. (Though we now have a ball hitch for the SUV.)

So, we turned to our usual home renovation method of throwing money at people more skilled and persevering than ourselves. Enter the landscapers. Monday the bulldozer came, Tuesday the frames were built to my desired shape, Wednesday the cement was poured, boards off Thursday, dinner on our new patio on Friday. Yea!

We switched from brick to cement for budgetary reasons. I had a couple of small pads poured at two locations by the creek as well where we've struggled to keep the growth down in the sitting areas. (Should have had them done bigger, but it gives me a future project.)

However, after all that, I was shamed by my lack of energetic participation - it was my to-do list after all - so we are doing the finishing garden work. We had 16 yards of topsoil delivered on Saturday and after a trip to the nursery and the Amish furniture lot, we have been shoveling, assembling, and sweating since.

Roni has made multiple trips to the hardware store to get cement wall blocks and boards. We've cut back creek brush, shaped raised beds and filled in around the patio and disassembled parts of the deck railing for posts. Sunday, Mom and Mr. Al came to help - they assembled the new gliding bench for the creek side pocket patio, moved some dirt, and tended newly planted/transplanted green stuff. J was amazingly energized by all the digging potential and became crew boss, bucket carrier, and king of the hill. The dirt may never come out of all his crevices.

We'd be done, except that exciting news turned us to packing, leaving partially filled raised beds to await our return.

Summer bloom

This is my favorite time of year in the garden. The zucchini are starting to reach amazing sizes, and the rudbeckia is finally blooming. The bees are going mad for the flowering lemon balm, oregano and thyme, and the hammock is ever ready. I parked it right next to the blueberries so I can pick and eat them without standing up.

We spent a couple hours at the river park today and had a great time, other than being terrorized by a Canadian goose that did not want to wait for us to throw the bread crumbs - we ended up chucking all the crackers at once and making a break for it while it was distracted. I don't go to this particular park very often - it is the nicer one, but farther away. It is shadier, so worth the drive today.

J had a new (very old) bulldozer to use in the wood chips. J's toy was very popular with the other little children, some of whom didn't quite understand that it wasn't theirs. J's pretty good about sharing, but a little tentative about getting things back. His method seems to be to stand very close to the child playing with his toy and hope they'll get the hint. They don't.