Backyard Garden Bed Progress

We’re making progress slowly in the backyard. I wanted to be done with a lot of this already, but we’ve been sick recently and apparently you’re not supposed haul bags of mulch with bronchitis. I did however get all my dahlias planted (bulbs and a plant), in the raised bed garden and along the side. I got the whole berry/sweet pea vine garden weeded, mulched and trellised.

It looks so much better now, mulch really does make such a difference. I didn’t weed the violets, they were just too darn pretty in bloom. I’ll have to do violet control later when they try to take over and probably regret this, but I have a soft spot for those little purple flowers.

On the other side of the forsythia bush, I also got the lily/mint bed done. It’s been weeded, widened (to accommodate fully grown plants that are bigger than they were 3 years ago) and I added a trench like we did out front. The mint is starting to come up now, soon it will grow wildly and take over - the trench should be helpful in taming it.

I still have to weed and mulch around the trees and bushes. I want to widen and mulch the entire perennial garden on the other side of the backyard and that’s going to be a big job. And I want to move some of those plants around too. But first? Our top priority this weekend is planting the garden!

My tomato plants are being hardened off this week, spending more and more time outside each day. Right now the weather forecast looks very promising, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I’d really like to plant the whole garden this weekend, but we shall see. Hopefully I can at least get the tomatoes in. Spring is so late this year and things are still on the cool side, so I might hold off on a few of the heat-loving seeds for another week.

The cool weather plants are happy in this weather though. The first pea vines are up. The lettuce I moved and re-planted is doing well. I did a second planting row next to that and also added my swiss chard seeds. We also fixed the fence and gate over the weekend, so the garden is protected from critters.  Progress!