Tales of Summers Past: Catching up to the Present

What have we done since we got here? Well, here's a quick rundown...

Summer 2007: Landscaping
The Butterfly Bush was dead when we got here. That was the first thing we took out. Rather, Rick watched me take out. We also cleared the spot against the garage. The only thing that was still trying to hang on was a scraggly Rhododendron and some Fountain Grass. I realized that those climbing vines with the white and pink flowers that were just everywhere in the backyard were not part of the landscaping. They're called bindweed and they are nearly impossible to kill. I used Roundup (glyphosphate) on them and it helped a little, but since they're so interwoven into the rest of the landscaping, it wasn't easy. Seems like the only thing that will help control them is starving them from sunlight. (Their roots are too deep and interconnected to pull up entirely.) So, I started pulling. And pulling and pulling. It was the summer of pulling weeds. Every day after work while Ruthie was relaxing in the backyard, I'd spend half an hour pulling the damn things from every surface I could find. I began to hate the whole idea of gardening.

Summer 2007: Vegetables
It was our first time planting tomatoes and cucumbers on the back section of our yard against the garage. I found out that squirrels really dig Roma tomatoes. We got maybe two Roma tomatoes off 4 plants that summer. Thankfully, the grape tomatoes they left untouched and they were delicious! The big surprise was that our cucumbers tasted incredible. A friend at worked remarked that they tasted like she imagines cucumbers in heaven will taste.

Summer 2008: Landscaping
We realized that nothing along the backside of the house is ever going to grow because it just doesn't get enough sun--except for crabgrass and weeds. Hello, Roundup! We got most of the backyard mulched to help with the weed pulling. We realized that the vinca in the front would never grow evenly because the north side of the lot gets more sun than the south side where it's shaded by our neighbor's giant tree. That's also why the arbor vitae on the north side of the lot is twice as tall as the one on the south side. The Kerria bushes died because their roots rotted out. I miss those pale yellow flowers in the spring, but I'm not bothering to plant that bush again. We have a lot of clay in our soil, so drainage is a real problem. I realize that maybe we should dig up large sections of our landscaping and mix in compost or topsoil or even some kind of sand mixture to combat the clay, but that’s a lot of work and a lot money just to have pretty plants in your backyard.

Summer 2008: Vegetables
The cucumbers were good, but not as tasty as they seemed the summer before. We planted 3 grape tomato plants, one Big Boy plant and 6 (yes, 6) Roma tomato plants. We used tomato cages purchased from Gardeners Supply Company. A word about that website: it's freakin' awesome whether you're a newbie, an intermediate gardener or whether you've grown anything under the sun for years. They have great tools to make gardening easy. They know that today people aren't living on a farm where they can keep an eye on their garden all day long--we're working at desks and gardening is something that we do as a pasttime. I imagine my grandma (and other people who grew up on a farm) might scoff at some of the things I've gotten on the website, like the seed starting kit or the aqua cones, but these things just make it a little easier. I'm not rich, but I'm not hurting for money (yet) so paying a little money to get something that has everything I need to seed start is worth it to me. Plus, the site includes customer reviews, so you can check and see if something really is worth it. We put up a small half-fence, trying to deter the squirrels and also got a hot pepper spray that we squirted on the plants after as a deterrent. The spray didn’t change the flavor of the veggies and the squirrels stayed away for the most part. Our mistake was that we had a vacation right during the hottest week in the summer. Our Romas took it hard and every single one came out mealy instead of moist. We also planted green beans and red peppers in containers on a whim. We only got 3 red peppers out of the two plants and only a couple of helpings of beans, but I was never all that diligent with watering.