WIP Wednesday - Yard and Garden Edition

                                                                               
I realized a few weeks ago I haven't posted any pictures of my garden this year.

It's possible that this is a reflection of how I'm feeling about the garden this year.

A few years ago I started a bunch of plants from seed and saved quite a bit of money. I did the same this year, but it didn't work out that well for me. First the crappy weather and then I've got some sort of plant killer. Not sure if it's a squirrel or some sort of bug, but I've lost about 60% of my plants and it's sort of heart breaking. All the corn (guthrie cried. she wanted to enter it into the county fair this year). All the broccoli - though I bought replacement starts- 6 out of 9 bell peppers. A few tomatoes. The only thing they didn't seem to care for were the carrots, lettuce, and onions. And peas. We have a lot of peas.

{volunteer sunflower - none of my on purpose ones made it}

You'll see in the photos that I have a totally respectable garden by anyone's standards - what is left is looking good, but it's not how I envisioned it. So, I'm kind of meh. I'm headed to the plant store today to see if there are any not too leggy bell pepper transplants left. And cucumbers. (update: no peppers to be had. i'm going to try one more place. no cucumbers - bought some seeds. they should be fine.) The other thing is that it's in the inbetween stages you know? The cold weather stuff is almost done (which is crazy because it's july!) and the hot weather stuff still hasn't arrived. I have probably another week before the cherry tomatoes start and another couple for any other tomatoes. And quite a long while before the melons come in. I'm hoping it stays warm enough for them to ripen this year.

{see? pretty respectable}

{lettuce shaded by peas - totally genius}

{view from the south}

The garden will get there. Who knows? I may be inundated with pounds and pounds of amazing tomatoes and it will turn things around for me. Also my kale is awesome. Kale is about the most rewarding thing to grow. Ever.

{small harvest of peas and a thinned carrot}

The front yard though, that's a different story. I'm feeling good there.

{everything on the left side of the picture is new}

When the roofers unintentionally destroyed a good portion of our front yard this winter/spring I jumped on the opportunity to get rid of some of our grass. We've got a lot of grass and a lot of shade in the front and the grass isn't all that successful. Hostas are really successful though. Among other shady things. John and I successfully split several of our existing hostas and a bleeding heart. John's mom got me a gift certificate to a nursery for my birthday and several of the plants I ordered have arrived and are doing well.

{the rocks are to help with a drainage issue. They're mildly successful. mostly I like the way they look}

It has been fun to reshape the front yard. I've been thankful for all the rain we've had - redoing the brick border was way easier in the mud and so was much of the weeding. The weeding isn't done yet- my mom has been helping and really, I don't want to lose any more soil so I'd rather have something there than nothing. I kept a brick path between our house and the neighbors'. The kids like walking on it and I think the mailman appreciates knowing where to walk. I'm going to fill in around the bricks with this ground cover that we have a ton of. And also use the same stuff to edge out the grass on the front of the hill. The less to mow and weed the better.

{i love astilbe. love it.}

I do so love that the kids are old enough to let me work in the yard for longer than 10 minutes at a time. It helps a lot with, well, with my sanity!