How Does your Garden Grow: Part 2

It’s been almost a month since I updated you on the garden progress!  We are starting to get green beans and jalapenos, the corn is tasseling and the pumpkins are taking off.  We also put in our second crop of corn on the empty side of the garden.  Meanwhile all the flowers have been putting on a show down there.  It’s my pride and joy this summer and I can’t stop taking pictures of all my blooming beauties.  Here’s a look.

Mama came and tilled a couple weeks ago.  I couldn’t resist this shot of her old tiller. :)

Here’s our new crop of corn in this empty space:

Green Beans

Mini Pumpkins.  We are training them to climb the wires. 

We already have several little pumpkins! :)

Tomatoes and peppers are slowly making headway.  The jalapenos were first and they are producing well.

On the creekbank above the weeds, the lilies are blooming along with coneflower, petunias, black eyed susan and marigolds.

And this is my favorite flower bed.  It’s full of lots of colorful blooms this summer!

Purple speedwell

Bee balm.  I love this plant.  It grows really fast, bees and butterflies love it.  Voles hate it.  Win win!  And it’s beautiful as a cut flower, too.

We have lots of varieties of lilies blooming—pink, orange, and yellow.  So pretty!

The pink phlox are finally blooming!

And our cleome from last year reseeded itself on the edges of the bed.  Which is perfect since it runs right into my wildflower border that I planted in the Spring. :)

The wildflowers are blooming.  Each week something new pops out!  I love the tiny yellow ones!  They are called caliopsis.

The blue ones are bachelor buttons (also known as corn flower).

This one is my favorite so far, it is dwarf morning glory.  So cute! 

It’s a beautiful Summer here at the Horvath House.  We are supposed to have lovely moderate temps this weekend and sunny days, so I’m looking forward to enjoying the outdoors to celebrate the 4th.  Happy Summer to you!

Garden Steps

Last year about this time we started working on the wooded path from the English Garden down to the new yard.  Mama put in a few steps at the bottom next to the gate.  Well, we’ve finally returned to that project a year later and put in the rest of the steps!

I forgot to take progress pics, but here are the completed steps leading to the garden!

After Mama and I finished laying the steps, we added a row of liriope down one side.  We still have to finish the border, and we also want to add more plants along the path later on. 

It’s certainly a more pleasant and picturesque walk down through the woods now with the addition of our steps! :)

Since we are already down here, let’s have a look around the English Garden, shall we?

Everything is looking nice!  I’ll be back soon with updates from the garden!

Happy Summer!

When life gives you 12 yards of topsoil…

Back in March I was set on mulching the backyard so I called around and ordered some mulch to have it delivered.  What luxury!  Usually I call my mother and brother and they work me into their schedules and we get mulch in several deliveries over the course of the month or whatever.  But they were busy so I took matters into my own hands!

Anyway fast forward to mulch delivery.  Giant dump truck arrives, backs carefully down my driveway and dumps a huge pile of something.  Mulch, eh, not so much.  Turns out it was topsoil and it was mistakenly delivered to my house instead of my mulch!  So, delivery guy calls the company and company guy calls me and says, So, do you have any use for 12 yards of topsoil?  Me: Do I ever!  Yes!  I’ll take it!  So the guy offers it to me free!  Woot!

Michael and I have a back and forth battle going with our grass.  Especially the back yard.  Which we reseeded three years ago in the fall.  Remember the battle in which I used Round Up on the backyard and then we tilled and reseeded it?  Well, clearly our ministrations don’t mean much to the grass.  It died anyway.  Moss creeps back in and soon our yard is looking as pathetic as before!  See below:

So we had been discussing what to do about our pathetic yard.  Maybe we should get a load of topsoil, maybe our soil was just too compacted and full of clay to make the yard nice?  Then this guy delivers me 12 yards of free topsoil.  Well, okay then! :)

So when life gives you 12 yards of topsoil, you call your brother John, who just happens to have recently bought a new tractor.  John is a gem, so he came the following weekend and spread all the topsoil on the yard for me!  Yay!  Thanks John!

Unfortunately this happened in the front yard since he had to drive around to the back.  So we reseeded it, too. :)

And the side yard, as well.

Mama helped me rake and smooth it and then I put out fertilizer and seed.  We bought “Shady Nook” grass seed so hopefully it will be successful back here.

Fast forward a few weeks. The grass is beautiful!

There’s even grass growing the side yard! :) Whoo!

While we were at it, I removed the azaleas on the left and put grass in that swath where the flower bed used to be.  It’s more continuous now.

Now if we can keep it watered and keep Miss Riley out of it, it might stand a chance of surviving.  At least for another couple of years.  :)