Mid-late April and May - 2006
Once Sue and I had some semblance of organization to our home's interior we surveyed the area around our home. We first decided that we'd create an orchard on the North side of the house and begin two simple vegetable gardens, one on the South side of the house and one on the South side of the shop. Sue pointed out thought that we should take advantage of the heat reflected by both buildings for heat loving plants like tomatos, peppers and basil. We did not then, nor do we yet own a tiller or tractor, and so with pickaxe and shovel we started the creation our garden of Eden.
Eden comes with rocks
One thing we are blessed or cursed with is a plentitude of rocks, in various sizes. The larger ones, say the size of a bowling ball or large watermellon, I gathered to form the borders of some raised planting beds and to line our main pathways. The first project I started was a simple gravel path from the driveway to the back door of our residence. Sue had read about the technique of using newspaper to retard the growth of weeds. So, we laid newspaper down on the ground I'd picked and smoothed for the path. On top of the newspaper we put a layer of stones, from the size of golfballs to a small fist. Next came a 2 inch deep layer of gravel. It did not take too long before we ran out of newspaper and so we started to use weed retardant fabric.
Over the Summer and into the Fall of 2006 I extended the pathway to the shop, from the back door of the house to: the SW corner of the House and the NW corner of the house. I had also develped some planting beds between the house and shop.
Plants like nice homes too!
For the planting beds I pickaxed the designated areas, setting aside all the rocks from the size of a golfball on up. Sue ordered ten yards of mushroom compost which we put into most of the beds. Some plants don't care for this compost we learned, blueberries in particular, so they and the cane-berries were treated to a special locally made compost. I constructed the rock-bordered raised bed, along the south side of the shop. It looked pretty good once I was done. The vegetable beds were planted in late June. I devised various fencing systems to discourage the local wildlife from feasting on our baby plants.
Before planting the orchard it only made sense to put up a tall fence first. Deer feel completely free to munch on most anything we humans desire to plant; we learned the hard way on a few of our favorite trees and flowers. I dug post holes and put up 4X4 treated posts and then tacked up a 48 inch high by 2X4 inch mesh utility fencing, at a height of 6 feet 6 inches. Under the untility fence went a row of 24 inch high poultry fencing, to try and keep out the rabbits. We are still fighting it out with the rabbits.
Our orchard is home to: 2 Filbert Nut trees, 2 Pear trees, 3 Apple trees, 8-9 Blueberry shrubs, 9-10 cane-berry crowns.
Tea Time! (June-July 2006)
To try and recapture one of Sue's favorite Spring and Summer activities, her morning Tea Time, Sue began to create a patio off of the south-facing glass sidding doors. Sue and I had thought about a nice large deck running along the south side of the house from west to east, but, we also wanted to plant tomatos along the south side of the house. So we chose a patio option as being the one which gave us the best use of the space. Sue placed the patio at the base of the southside porch, extending it toward the south. She used 12" square red concrete pavers. Sue's patio was ready for use by July 1st, 2006
