urban farming at our house

Sunday was a gorgeous day here.  As the rain is finally due to arrive tomorrow - we spent the afternoon moving the garden beds around.  We collect leaves and grass from Pap most years, but with his surgery this year, we have gotten no grass from him.  We were fortunate to get 6 bags of leaves this weekend.  The leaves become great compost over the winter.

Bug choose to wear his overalls and boots for this adventure.  He is busy moving bags of leaves from the fence line by the driveway to the first set of moved gardens.

 You can see the dead corn behind him here.  Those are the 2 beds being moved here. The one box behind him was moved later in the day.

 asking for help with this bag- it was a little heavy.

 5 garden beds moved.  The gardens have been moved in about 10 feet from the fence line.  The neighbors next door are going to add a pool and deck along the fence line. So their deck will be 5 feet from my bedroom windows.  So we are putting in trees.  I am planning on 3 semi dwarf apples trees where the gardens were and then a couple of Junipers between the fence and house to block the flood lights they have on the current deck. 

 This is the area for the semi dwarf apple trees- you can see the current deck on the right side of this picture. 

Bug is excited about apple trees in our backyard.  he loves his apples.  We should get apples the second year.  The trees will be 12-16 feet tall, so not too bad.  The neighbors are  not happy about the trees going  in.  The wife is terrified that the tree branches will fall off and hit her house. But really she is not happy that I cam going to shade her yard- as the sun is on the left side of the picture most of the day.  My thought on this- oh well, you should have considered my bedrooms when you plotted out the space for the pool (it will be on the slope of the yard) and the noise from her deck (right outside my bedroom and Bug's bedroom.  Apparently the fact that I put room darken clings on the window, that they have room darkening shades and room darkening curtains (she has seen the inside of the rooms) means nothing.  We seldom have the windows that face their yard open- because there is too much light and too much noise.  But I digress. 

We have to finish composting 2 of the garden boxes and I have to find some good fertilizer to add to the other boxes to replenish the nutrients used this growing season.  What I need is some manure - but I would need a truck for that.  oh well, I have all winter to get things sorted out and get the beds ready for spring planting in March.  I also need to think about what to plant in the first garden bed as it is going to be in shade the earliest in the day.  I am thinking about herbs, as the bed will still get 6-8 hours f sun in the summer, but the other beds will get 8-12 hours.

And the other project will be rain barrels- after the drought this summer and having to give up on the gardens in July because watering 5 hours every 3 days was too expensive- I need a way to preserve water in the Spring and Fall, and then only have to water in the summer. 

OK that is all for tonight.  Updates on the gardens coming over the winter as I plan out what to plant and get ready.

Love and hugs,
Deb