Summer work projects

OK, so I have been away from the blog - again - for a long time. But it's been because we have been doing crazy things to our yard! Well, that is what is was recently at least. We have a list of things we'd like to do and the biggest of those was to expand our back yard. If you remember a year ago we sodded the backyard and seeded the side yard. Well this year, we decided to enclose the side yard up to the front porch so 70% of what we seeded last year is now part of the back yard. These are not the best quality pictures because I took them with my iPhone (the battery in my good camera died so this was all I had) but this will give you a good idea. Click on the links I put in for previous entries to remind yourself what the yard looked like before.

Looking from the side yard at the new fence

From the backyard along the new fence looking back towards the garage

From the patio looking at the new fence - you can appreciate the meadow grass and wildflowers the best here, I think

Also I have gotten my garden up and running for the year. I don't know how it will do but we are going to try to put a sun blocker up that will filter out 30% of the sun since it gets SO hot on the back concrete pad. This year I have planted 4 types of sweet peppers, 3 types of hot peppers, parsley, 3 kinds of tomatoes, sugar snap peas, broccoli, 2 kinds of lettuce, and cucumbers in the back raised bed. I'm also trying some container planting for my herbs - cilantro, basil, rosemary, and thyme - as well as a pot for strawberries. I'm not sure if you can appreciate in the pictures below quite how the basil and cilantro have taken off, but basically I'm giving it away to people at work because there is so much of it.

I won't bore you with what is what, but just know it's a lot that may or may not actually survive

The cilantro is in the right and left corners and the basil is in the back corner

My strawberries!!

So as we do more projects, I'll post more pictures. But for now just be content with the fact that I promise I will have more to post soon - and I think I'm going to change the name of the blog in the next month or two so be on the lookout!!