I'm sure I have more interesting things to talk about than my yard, but I seem to be misplacing quite a few things, including my brain. So rather than attempt to write something more clever, I'm posting pictures of my garden.These are the "after" shots, which are really the "during" because there are quite a few things not quite finished. But you can see the rectangular raised garden bed that runs along one side of the patio, with newly planted vegetables (and seeds, and space for a few more things that aren't out yet).
At the corner of the house is the stone thing (pillar?) that my husband built to hold the rain barrel. The barrel itself is styled like an old-world terra cotta pot, but its plastic. We still don't have the downspout actually sending any water into the rain barrel, but I did get a basic irrigation system assembled this weekend (not in the photo, and also not actually attached to the rain barrel for lack of proper connectors and timer). So, yeah, large brown hollow plastic pot on a stack of rocks. Moving right along.
Tucked behind it up against the side of the house is our oh-so-pretty half-broken compost bin, which is starting the season off already half-full of old plant parts. I added grass clippings today (with the snow shovel, no joke), and I think the sedums (or never-dies as my MIL calls them) are actually growing inside the compost bin. Seriously, the dumb things are still green and perky. The never-dies are the plants at the corner of the patio, and are exceedingly hard to kill (even with 100 degree heat and no water) and very very fertile. They also have pretty flowers come late summer that attract butterflies and bees (pollinators!) by the dozens. If you want one, come on over and I'll pull a chunk back out of the compost bin...
And the astute observer may notice a slight variation in the edging to our new rock bed area. We had bricks around the edges of Patio Garden 1.0 which have been reused in Patio Garden 2.0, except there weren't quite enough, and they are no longer being sold. We bought a second type of brick edgers to fill in the gap, but didn't measure quite thoroughly, so we need a few more. And we need to finish setting the rest of what we have. But you should get the idea.
And on the theme of our plastic-and-concrete backyard, I have to point out that our raised garden bed walls are plastic, the stepping stones at the bottom of the deck stairs are made from recycled plastic garbage bags, our rain barrel is plastic, and our deck is Trex and white vinyl. And, yes, we used chunks of construction-debris concrete dug out of the yard as decorative stones in between the never-dies. All the man-made (and potentially carcinogenic if media is to be believed) materials make an amusing contrast to the organic soil, water conservation, and composting. Amusing to me, anyway :)
