We have finally made the move from IA to WI. While it's sad to move away from the garden we've put so much work into over the past few years, we're excited about the possibilities in our new home and its 2 acre lot:
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| Mike and the baby in June, right after closing on our new home |
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| View from the backyard |
We didn't do much with the Iowa garden this year because we were moving, but we had some food still in the ground from last year (kale, carrots, strawberries) and had time to plant some cold weather crops.
May
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| Planter box with peas and lettuce |
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| flowering kale |
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| carrots from last season |
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| strawberries |
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| a baby and some roses, BEFORE the Japanese beetles set in! |
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| tree frog |
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| dianthus, an "annual" grown from seed, in its 3rd season |
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| I forgot what this annual is called, but it made it through the winter, too |
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| Radishes |
June
We had a few meals full of garden-grown foods. In my perennial garden, the boxwood didn't survive its late Fall transplant, which is okay since it only cost $4 when I bought it two years ago, so I got a purple Speedwell to take its place. It's amazing what a little weeding and mulch can do to a garden. I seriously should have taken before and after pictures to show you just how amazing a transformation that little work provides.
My container of plants we bought on Mother's Day was inspired by a container of edible flowers and herbs in my
container gardening book.
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| a beet |
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| lettuce |
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| strawberries |
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| carrots |
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| my perennial garden |
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| Flowers we bought on Mother's Day |
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| the vegetable garden |
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| hostas |
July
In July we finally moved in, over a month after we closed on the home. Which means there are lots of weeds!
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| There is a drainage field beyond the row of conifers, so pretty in the late afternoon sunlight. |
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| One view from the back deck. The yard is much bigger than it looks! |
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| Another backyard view, including the lawnmower shed, as well as our random peony and daylily |
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| view from the living room window of the front yard |
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| This is a beautiful planter that needs some weeding and pruning |
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| our front walk, after a whole lot of weeding |
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| my container garden |
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| herbs |
You can imagine that we are starting to dream up how to landscape our new outdoors. We do want to build a new front porch and probably add a patio off the deck out back, so until we have a big master plan, I don't plan to do much. I do know that there are a few daylilies that need to find a new home in the compost pile (what is it with people and their excessive use of daylilies? they don't even provide good cutting flowers!), fruit trees to be planted, and of course, some sort of big vegetable plot for all of Mike's crops. After a winter to plan, we'll have to see what Spring brings! For now, we'll enjoy what's already here, like the 4 lbs of blackberries Mike picked from the woods behind our new home:
Guess it's time to start collecting ideas from other gardens and get ready to plan a new one!
