{South Side Garden} June Update

Hello! Happy Tuesday!

I took these photos today as I realized it's time for an update. You can see that everything is growing in quite well and the mint may need to be removed, or at least cut back! 

The Bee Balm (bottom right in the above picture) is doing great. 

The Russian Sage, which I have here on our South Side Garden, and in Lily's Garden, is doing great in both locations. Almost a little too good as it's a beast in height and width, but it's beautiful and the pollinators love it! You can see in the above photo that it's behind the containers but definitely towers over things now. 

And new to me this year is Nasturtium. I bought seeds earlier this year and literally pushed them into the ground all over the yard. I had no idea if that would work but it did! It's about the only thing I've successfully grown from seeds as my poppies didn't grow this year (which I'm bummed about). I guess sunflowers have worked but those things act more as volunteers than anything else. 

The Golden Raspberries (one of the bushes in the top photo) did amazing this year. The plant grew many off shoots and I will be moving some this fall or next Spring. The fruit from the original plant was great and the kids loved it! Definitely a keeper and one to try if you haven't experimented with it. 

In the photo above, we have a blueberry (which did produce this year but it's just a baby), the golden raspberries, and tomatoes in the containers. I ate my first tomato today, a little baby cherry tomato. Behind the containers are strawberries and they are doing great. We ate two large berries last night that rivaled those you buy in the store! The lettuce and kale have been given to the chickens as their time is up in the garden. 

What are you growing? We also have blueberries in our front yard, more (regular) raspberries in the back, sunflowers, more tomatoes, loofahs (trying for the first time), and maybe a pepper plant if the chickens didn't eat it. 

{South Side Garden} Garden Update

If you are following me on Instagram (at thebrickbungalow), you might remember that I had one of the original five buckets stolen. Yes, someone actually dug it up (the last one, closest to the fence) and left me some of the stuff that was inside of it. Luckily, we had one more than I was saving for something else that never happened so I replaced it. I then filled all of them with more dirt, compost, and extras to make them nice and healthy for the plants. 

I then added the stone border, put rocks around the meter, planted a few new plants in the ground, and planted tomatoes (and the marigolds) in the buckets. I also put a trellis and a transplanted clematis on the fence. I figured it'd be nice to help pollinators as well as provide food for us. 

Since then, the Missouri heat and our watering (plus some of nature's, but we could use more!), made it all go crazy. Weeds, especially. I'm planning on clearing out the crack between the sidewalk and the foundation (seen above in the shadow) and using the sand that turns into concrete. I figured it's worth a try and some effort, right? 

Ignore the weeds in the back. I desperately need to clean up the sidewalk back there and compost a bunch of the weeds. 

{Gardening} South Side, Update

It's amazing how well a garden can grow, isn't it? This one may be growing a bit too much (especially the weeds!). This was taken yesterday. 

The above photo was taken on June 6, so exactly two weeks before the top photo. I pulled the two plants near the trellis (more "gourds" - see below), and staked the pepper plants. 

What do you think of painting the basement window frames gray? The sides and top are wood and the bottom is the concrete, but has been painted white. I'm thinking gray will help it hide in. And then I want to frost the windows with spray paint so it'll let in light but keep it more private. We currently have them covered. 

The above two photos of gourds were a trial run of planting seeds with my coworker before the season was ready. We did a few others too but the gourds really took off. The problem is that I'm pretty sure the package just said "gourds" and nothing else. So I'm thinking they'll be more like bird house gourds rather than something else. Any help? Suggestions? The plant may be taken out and it'll definitely be cut back soon as it's taking over everything. 

This baby praying mantis was fun to see. We had seen a few others in our back yard but not in the garden area. Let's hope they stay away from the chickens! I mentioned on Instagram (follow @thebrickbungalow) that I haven't seen an adult in awhile but I always see the babies. So obviously the adults are better at hiding! 

And another generic package, our "garden beans" that I picked last night. I didn't cook them well or I'd be describing their delicious (hopefully) flavor. Better luck next time!

Do you garden? What do you plant? This is this garden's first year so we'll keep it around for now. I may add to it if I can get more buckets. And by may, it'll definitely happen. I did this all, minus a few trees that needed chopped by Doug, so he can't get too mad at me!

{Gardening} South Side

Hello friends! Happy Monday!

A couple weeks ago I was able to work outside and finally put 5 of the 6 recycled buckets to use in my south side yard. This part of our yard isn't very big, and technically our neighbor owns maybe one foot of it, so I can't do much. We added a raised bed to it last year and so I knew it would be a great spot for some extra beds. Plus, it's on the south side of our yard and gets full sun. 

Doug helped me out by mowing a bunch of the weeds and then chopping some of the big trees and weeds. 

I don't know the measurements but it's a pretty good length between our HVAC and meter to our fence. Last year it went way out of control and the weeds were everywhere. We definitely needed to do something different this year! 

Above shows the placement of the 5 barrels. I received them from an old coworker's husband who is a farmer. I now want about 10 more! I buried them about 4-5" deep. I'm still planning on adding more but this was done quickly and on a tiny budget (ok, it was supposed to be free but I can't stop with plants). 

Excuse the mess in the back, it's still a work in progress. 

And then I added a bunch of baby plants. It's all grown since this photo so I'll get out and update this post soon. I bought the simple trellis at Walmart for the cucumber to grow up. We have them in our main garden too but I thought this would be fun. The pots have peppers, gourds, and tomatoes. There are some flowers and a lot of herbs that surround the buckets. 

My plans for this space include getting a small retaining wall built (maybe just one stone high) and mulching everything to help with water retention. I'd like to put gravel under the meter to prevent weeds from growing around it and the HVAC system. If I do that, I'll continue the border/wall to them. There's only one other bed between the HVAC system and the front of our house. I'd like more buckets to fill in some more space. Maybe I need to call my old coworker again! I do have one more bucket but I was thinking of using it elsewhere. Maybe I should just use it here again and move on with other plans. 

Anyway, here's to more updates now that it's summer. My computer is acting up and I start grad school today so fingers crossed all goes well!! 

{Side Yard} Ivy Control

While working on our bathroom this summer, Doug and I also got one outside project check off our to do list. We seem to do smaller projects at the same time as big projects. Anyone else do this? I think we had done most of our bathroom and were at the waiting stage (paint drying or something similar) and so we completed one small project. I can't wait to see how it looks this year once some more growth is added.

But… we tackled our side porch's ivy issue. I love the English Ivy and have cut it back a few times to control the growth. It's an amazing plant and we figured we could use it's growing power to block out our neighbors. I'm hoping it'll block out some of their smoke but that's more wishful thinking. I can dream, right?? 

So not only do we have a giant patch of the ivy, there's also another, more boring, type of ivy mixed in with a plant that seems to want to take over the world. I think it's Rose of Sharon and it'll be gone this summer. It's a pretty plant but is in my way. And grows like crazy. This is what we had after I chopped the Rose of Sharon a lot. The ivy is growing up and around the white edge to our porch. 

And so with a few boards, white paint, and some clothes line, we created a zig zag like pattern for the ivy to grow up. It filled it a lot more since this photo but I apparently never took another photo. You can see the saw horse and other bathroom related items that we used this summer. 

 And while cleaning out a lot of the ivy, this big (seriously like 5") praying mantis wanted to defend his territory.  

And yes, we need to paint all the white window sills and trim around our house…

Do you have ivy? How do you control it if you do?  

{Lily's Garden} New Bed #1

As stated in the previous post about Lily's Garden, I made a new bed in the one last corner of the garden. When we installed the fence last fall, it broke up the remaining front portion of the garden into four sections. One closest to the house that now has three hydrangeas, one on the other side of the fence from the hydrangeas (that was shown off in the previous post) and two others, closest to the driveway - one on either side of the fence. Confusing, I know. I need some drawings of the aerial shot of the garden.

Anyway, this one corner was rather larger than the rest and I just hadn't tackled it yet. I kind of knew what plants I wanted and knew that they would need to be able to handle full sun. Last fall I remember seeing a few plants I liked at our local nursery, that I love, and so I kept that in my mind all winter long. Now that it's finally past all of our horrible, cold, wet winter, I can plant! And plant I did! I started by clearing out the area, Doug tilled it, and then I focused on the plants. I put the new miniature butterfly bush in the back center, leaving room for it to grow. I added one star gazer lily, some coneflowers, and an assortment of others.

And the semi - after... I need to take a photo of the mulched area. Mulch makes all gardens look great!!! 

One more bed down... makes it three... so one more to go! I hope to knock it out this week!!

Next up on our list... a raised bed in our front yard for our two blueberry bushes! 

{Lily's Garden} Rocks

We have a giant mess on our hands that we started dealing with last weekend... it's a giant path of ugly rocks that goes from our sidewalk to our driveway. It's right in front of Lily's Garden and in the way of a prettier entrance and part of where we want the arbor and fence to go. Needless to say, it's time to make it go away! So, with the nice weather last weekend, we started. Four (or was it five?!) trips to the back yard (to fill up the mud pit) we called it a day to deal with Lily, dinner, bath time, and everything else. It'll at least be 15-20 more buckets full to remove it all. There is a lining (shown in the pic below) underneath it all if that makes any difference but it's been punctured so weeds and dirt are all included already.

Eventually we will have a newly paved sidewalk to the front of our house and to our driveway (plus at least part of our driveway repaved to fix all the nasty cracks) and that'll make it look so much better! Last year our city did an improvement program and helped pay 90% of the costs for a new sidewalk but we were too late to get it in the fall. I need to see if they are going to do it again and sign up ASAP if they are!

The front of Lily's garden. There will be a fence (made out of wood supports and metal panels for plants to grow up on) and our arbor that we bought last year that will be centered on the big bed in front. More plants will be added, grass will be gone completely, and pea gravel and mulch will be added (plus some stepping stones of some sort). It'll look great once it's all done and grown in. Oh, and I also want to add a trellis of some kind on the bump out on the house (which is our fireplace wall). Doesn't it just call for something?

Our helper, she insists on doing as much as she physically can.

And then it was time to ride her tricycle and clean it too....

{Outside} Hostas

I almost named this one "Hosta La Vista" but then thought that was too much...

When we bought the house 5 years ago, there were some hostas that we knew would need seperated. Fast forward 5 years and we finally had a weekend afternoon where Lily was asleep and we weren't planning on doing anything else. And it was a nice day out. Those three things (nap, free time, and weather) hardly ever happen when both of us are at home. So we took advantage of it and finally tackled the hostas. Or I did anyway, Doug was busy tackling the rest of the overgrown bushes, stumps, and cleaning up the backyard after Lily's playground.

I promise to some day take photos with my nice camera again and not my phone but this is easy and convienent, plus my nice camera has a dead battery. I know, I know, excuses.

So, what started out at a giant overgrown section of hostas ended up being over 25 different plants that lined the entire north side of our house (minus the porch, we're leaving that area empty for now) and then the entire south side "dead area" of our porch. I'd love to have put some in our back yard but Krypto is a plant killer.

Here are the beautiful hostas from a picture taken during a year that didn't include triple digit heat waves and severe droughts. I hope they return to this some day!

This shot shows that there are lots of other things growing where my hostas are. We've since removed all the random trees, the rosebush, and weeds. It'll be tilled up and replanted next year after we figure out the future arbor and fence to go around Lily's Garden.

 Here's what the area looks like this year. Horrible, right?! And please excuse the ugly blue tub. We have gutter issues and that collects the water that leaks. And that's the base of my grandmother's bird bath that we disassembled for the fall.

Here's the empty, pitiful spot along the north side of our house where Lily's Garden is. It's since been cleaned up and things properly put away in the garage to make room for the hostas. Well, except the hose rack 'cause I'll water again. The line of rocks were in place of a nasty, ugly ground cover that once was down the length of the house. A few years ago we got the rocks for free from my dad's work and put them there, knowing we'd get to the garden eventually. The rocks are going to be edged with the remaining bricks eventually to keep them in place. The grass will all be removed and mulch (maybe some day pea gravel) will be in its place as a way to walk through the garden.

And here are the hostas lined up against the north side of the house (reverese angle, sorry for the confusion). Don't get me started on the ugly wires. We pulled one down that wasn't attached anymore. One is cable, the other is electrical and may be the missing wire that works our street light in our front yard (that's never worked!).

Here's a clump I put in the front yard by our flag. I since repositioned the flag into the pot behind it, adding more height to the area and making it easier to see. This front garden will hopefully some day be my moon garden (all white flowers, silver and varigated plants) but it's a hodge podge of stuff right now. It's not high on the list, although I'd like to add more too it next year.

And here's the south side of our front porch where we put the remaining rocks and lined with concrete stones a few months ago.

{Front Yard} Foundation Stones

Some how these photos never ended up on here... so here's the best type of before shots of Lily's Garden that I have on this computer. Maybe some day I can check on the old Mac's hard drive (it's still good although the laptop is just a giant paperweight now).

Here we are bringing in the big toys. That's my dad's tractor and about the only thing we could use to move some of the foundation stones we found on Craigslist. That and Doug's strength. :)

The side garden before anything. This was obviously taken after the rocks sat there long enough for the grass to grow around them. This was also pre-fence too. See that concrete in the back? That's our giant patio. See the building in the far back? That's a local elementary school. School's make for nice neighbors. :)

Oh, the stump. Good golly that thing was ugly and massive. The plant itself, before being cut down, was probably over 9 feet tall. And ugly. Plain Jane for sure.

One of the biggest rocks. We loved his little character with the corner piece missing, so we sat him upright. I'll have to do a before and after photo with this one now that I've found it. He's surrounded by my hydrangeas now. I'm not sure what happened to that yellow daisy flower though... it didn't make it last year.

And the reason behind all the madness. Our little Miss Lily back when she was just 1. Short hair, her red car, and a bottle.

{Side Yard} Front Side Yard

As we continue to move the cactus garden to a real garden, we needed to find places throughout our yard that could use the rock "mulch" without being too big of an issue (as in cost a lot of money or be a lot work). After putting some rock in our big front bed, by the Big Rock, and the two beds in Lily's garden, we needed another place. There was a lot of rock!!

So for those that don't know our yard, this is the south side (or right side as you're looking at the house) of our front yard. The rock is right next to our front porch and the sidewalk goes back to our back yard and the fence, plus it's near all the irises shown below.

This area of our yard is not dealt with at all. The bush on the left grows like crazy but does have pretty flowers on it. It may still come up though and be replaced with a lilac from my parents that was my grandmothers (and I think it's white, which helps with the whole white garden theme I want for the front yard). There is some ivy in all of this and I want to keep the English ivy. The other type could all die and I'd be happy.

You can see in the picture that we had some containers to hold up the dirt from the big raised bed in the front of our house and I haven't planted them yet. The black shephard's hook held a small bird feeder last year but our neighbor's cats keep the birds away. I'd like to have a hummingbird feeder but may just do a small hanging planter.

Another angle of the bed... this one shows the English ivy growing up the side of the house. The white bar is the side of our porch.

We bought the 10 retaining wall stones at Menard's for a reasonable price (can't remember, less than $2 each though) and 10 stones were enough to hold the rock in. It's not the prettiest thing but once there are some flowers in there and the yard can get trimmed up around it, it'll be just fine. We mainly needed the stones to hold in the rocks so that it wouldn't wash into our yard every time it rains, causing trouble for Doug when he mows.

The irises along the sidewalk (pictured more above) that go between our front yard and back yard. These can be seen out of Lily's bedroom, our TV room, and the front bedroom.