So, I’ve been absent from my blog for a looong time. Around 6  years or so. In that time I have been coaching 8U & 10U softball in the spring and fall. This last fall, me and the Mrs moved to a smaller home. We only have about a 1/3 of an acre here, and above is a picture of my new back yard. It has a slope of about 6’ over a 12’ width. Hence I needed to put a set of steps in it for us to get up and down to the shed and the compost bins behind it.

We have to compost our dogs waste, because with 3 dogs, we have a lot of it. I am using the wheat straw you see in the picture as my ‘browns’ and the dog refuse as my ‘greens’. The bins are in a shady spot, so I am not yet getting the compost to heat up. We’ll see what summer brings. I may have to adjust how much browns I am adding.

Once I had the steps in, I decided to expand the project to add the garden beds on either side so I wouldn’t have to mow the hillside. 

I have four beds so that I can rotate my crops every year. I’ve planted some bulbs and perennials on the edges and I’ll fill in with flowering annuals as needed. 

On the left there you can see the bean ‘ladder’. I have pole beans, cucumbers and cantaloupe planted at the base. I’ll train them to grow up the ladder and hopefully keep them out of reach of the dogs. 

My labs like to eat my veggies before I get a chance to harvest them. This spring they’ve already dug up three planting of radishes, and while I was in Amsterdam, they ate my snap pea plants. I may have to erect the electric fence to keep them out. 

 These were my snap peas prior to leaving for Amsterdam.

 Above you’ll see the Gold Dust scuba and the Oregon grape holly I planted along the back fence. Our backyard abuts a disk golf course, so at some point I hope these will grow big enough to provide some screening. There are some hostas and arborvitae ferns planted in front of them.

Here are the hostas I planted along the path to the shed. 

My big experiment this winter was trying to germinate some Redbud seeds I collected from along a roadside. I pass these trees a lot in my travels and one day last fall I stopped and took a handful of seedpods home with me. I nicked each one with some nail clippers, put them in a baggie with water, and stuck them in the freezer for two months. I took them out and put them in some pots and placed them outside in a spot that gets morning sun. It’s taken awhile, but they sprouted this weekend. I’m so excited! Free trees!