Half-acre update: infrastructure edition

Last year's changes in the Way Back are bearing fruit this year (literally, in some places!) and we are making progress on taming the wilderness that's left. This is largely thanks to my son Nick, who is in charge of hardscape and heavy lifting (I just do plants). Here are some of the things he's created in the last year or so:

Edging for beds, here as a continuation of the patio just behind the house (also his work). This is not part of the Way Back, but I wanted to point it out since it's extremely useful in defining what's planting bed and what's "lawn" (I put that in quotes advisedly; we'll work on having more grass among the weeds in the fall). So far just two beds have been edged with pavers, but we'll have stone or something else around all of them eventually.

Edging by the parking area. We put down a new load of gravel so it all looks very tidy for now.

Retaining wall in back of the parking area, and herb spiral just below, behind the shed. This marks the entrance to the former vegetable garden, now unfenced and planted with herbs, fruit, and whatever the hell else I want. There's a path running just below the wall, which needs to be finished up, and on the other side we'll have a formal paved entrance to the less-formal garden. With a mosaic!

New compost bin, built out of the Trex boards that made up our old deck. Eventually it'll have a top to keep animals out.

Fence around the black raspberries. The planting is in a T shape, with simple (non-supportive) fencing on both sides so the plants can grow between and not need to be constantly tied up. I still need to prune regularly of course. I was going to cover this all with bird netting, but I think instead I'll just tie up shiny streamers to see if that deters the birds at all, since netting is such a major pain. The blueberry hedge in the front yard has a Micromesh covering over it this year, which looks weird but is so far keeping the birds out (and it can be taken off easily once the fruiting is done).

Nick working hard on moving soil! Between digging out for the patio, for the retaining wall, and to remove the mixed gravel and soil that made up our parking area, he created some huge piles in the messy areas of the Way Back, which are currently being reorganized into a berm that I'll be able to plant on. Photos to come when it actually looks like something. And I'll put up some photos of what's already planted in the more organized areas, as well. I am doing a lot with free and cheap plants. And learning what will immediately be devoured by deer, groundhogs, rabbits, and birds, what can be temporarily protected and then left to fend on its own, and what they don't seem to like at all. A learning experience, hopefully leading to a productive and pretty garden.

Current state of the Food Forest Thing

And other Half-Acre projects - coming along slowly but making progress.

Let's start with the prettiest photo, which shows the first couple of what will be tree and underplanting groupings.

To the far right of the photo just above the chives is a young crabapple tree; there are also two pretty much invisible stick-like figs (one new, and one that I thought was dead until I bought the new one). Also lots of herbs, some bush cherries, some rhubarb, and raspberries (some in pots) that will be moved.

Pulling back:

you can see what's going to be a path and some more planting area - this is just upslope of what turned out to be a T-shaped planting of black raspberries developed from the old parallel lines plus jungle. Transitioning from squares and rectangles and straight lines into curves and ovals, both in imagination and reality, is one of the hardest things about this project, especially when some of the straight lines have to stay in place.

Up by the green shed there is Nick's retaining wall project:

which will include an herb spiral and will be glorious but is now extremely transitional. We have piles of carefully-sorted soil and gravel all over the Way Back.

Which is fine because most of it was weeds. Wall blocks and other materials coming soon. Done in a few weeks I hope!

I have new currants and jostaberries that I didn't photograph, and also some beach plums that are inside a fence for deer protection:

Everything is so tiny and hard to get photos of just now. The fencing is temporary and inconvenient, and I'm going to replace it with something attractive since it'll have to stay there a while. You can see some of the black raspberries to the right, which also need fencing. Wood, decent-looking, painted. By fall. The beach plums are hard to spot in the photo, but you can see the squash plants I stuck in there, and also the wee little seedless che tree:

Looking down the hill - we took out huge amounts of weeds along the neighbors' barn and put in sod:

It's another straight line but at least it's neat, and the top part wants to live.

On the other side of the Way Back, above the former playhouse (now pot shed, no not that kind of pot), I planted a dwarf weeping mulberry:

I have fond childhood memories of such a tree and want to recreate them for any child who might someday play in our yard. When it gets big I'll tame the surrounding mess of lemon balm, mountain mint, motherwort and other vigorous plants, and create a suitable fairy landscape.

My kiwis are still alive! I had terrible doubts after the desiccating wind incident, but they leafed out again.

No fruit this year, but I will take living plants. Beyond this, on the driveway side where we took out the privet hedge (which is what made the kiwis subject to wind damage), I've put in six more blueberries:

though they are pretty hard to see in that photo, and yes, we desperately need to tidy up the beds. Nick is helping me with that, too - see bed in back with nice edging:

Any plant-related chaos will be tidied later, but edging helps me pretend it's coherent.

There is much more to be done in other areas, but here's one I'm thinking about:

This tunnel of darkness is what happened when we got serious about pulling out invading vines and spreading forsythia and pruning the holly, and now it's a nice grotto that unfortunately opens onto the driveway and allows people passing on the other side to see right through to our hot tub and garbage area. I am thinking organic screen made of branches installed in the ground, or a hobbit hole door, or something like that. Good project for a hot summer week.

Spring tasks

Haven't posted here in ages! Well, it has been winter - a rather strange one, with Christmas at nearly 70 degrees F. and then a blizzard in January (29 inches of snow in 1.5 days). Overall it's been a bit warmer than average (whatever that means anymore) and spring is raring to go. (At the moment there is an inch of new snow on the ground, but it won't last more than a day or so.)

I will have flowers for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day this month! In fact, there are snowdrops (which have been going all winter, even under the snow), crocuses and hellebores blooming right now, and daffodils will likely appear before the 15th.

My big task for the spring is to get going on this Food Forest Thing (FFT) which won't be strictly a food forest, since it will include plenty of native (and non-native) non-food-producing plants, but whatever it is it'll involve some planning and lots of land-clearing and planting. I should probably have a Five-Year Plan or something, but I get overwhelmed if I see things in too-large chunks of Help and Bother, so more likely I'll be dealing with it one little piece at a time. But here's the big picture, for once:

This is the view looking down on the Way Back (before it snowed, obviously). The fence posts (coming out slowly but surely, and perhaps faster now that we have a proper post jack) are the borders of the former vegetable garden. The gate frames are staying in, because they are cool and my athletic cat likes to climb them. Taking this, I am standing at the back of the parking area, next to the shed. We are going to build a retaining wall just in front of me. The mess of green fencing to the left is protecting some current (not currant - those are to the right) plantings, including a young fig tree which will become the focus of Guild #1 (or whatever I end up calling it). (Assuming it survived the winter.) There are also some raspberries that need to be moved, and some blueberries that will end up in the front side yard replacing the privet hedge if we manage to rip it out. Plus various herbs and little bush cherries.

I have re-formed the black raspberry parallel rows into a cross-shaped formation, which will be easier to access if I get behind on pruning.

I'll try to post here with updates. FFT Go!