Front yard vegetable garden

Last summer we watered just enough to keep our big corner lot minimally green and weed-free. It took a lot of water, and we felt guilty about it. We need to re-landscape with a lot less grass, but there is only so much time and money. All winter long, I wondered. Could we grow vegetables in the front yard without setting off the neighbors' hillbilly alarm? Turn a big patch of water-hogging lawn into a drip-irrigated vegetable patch?

There is a whole front yard garden movement, it turns out. "Food not lawns," etc. I found pictures online of neat and ornamental front yard vegetable gardens that gave me courage. We bought some natural willow fencing, for a tidy border and to keep out the neighborhood dogs and wildlife. We decided to try a modified version of a lasagna garden, where you layer newspaper right on top of the sod and then put soil and organic amendments on top. The newspaper blocks light and kills the grass, but slowly decomposes and makes rich, worm-friendly soil underneath. No digging or tilling.

We marked out a 20' X 13' area, and put wet newspapers right on top of the grass. The size was determined by how much fencing we could afford.


20 bags of aged manure went on top of the newspapers.

R was a big help, but she eventually wandered off to draw on the driveway with her chalk from the Easter Bunny. She says this is a picture of "me as the Queen of the World."

Here is why there have been no posts recently

We have been busy arranging to have two tons of dirt dumped on the front lawn.

More pictures and an explanation shortly.

May 4

In the end, I could not carry off the pea brush.

In theory, I like the idea of pea brush. Overlapping birch saplings thrust into the ground behind your peas, so they will twine around it as they grow. But I think to carry off pea brush properly, you need to be either an elderly and crotchety Scottish gardener, or better yet, a grand lady who employs one. My pea brush was ridiculous from the beginning. It wasn't tall enough or sturdy enough and we don't have any birch trimmings.

So I took it down and put up some netting strung between two bamboo poles. It seems to be working fine. The peas are growing, and in the foreground the radishes and arugula planted from seed are popping up. Back toward the peas, there is spinach/mustard and some mesclun, chives and sorrel and ruby chard.

Spinach/mustard and peas.

Looking the opposite direction, from the bed in the back of the yard. The bed in the foreground has, left to right: space for the bok choi seedlings I am hardening off; rainbow chard; Texas sweet onions; and bunching onions. The bed in the middle has butter and salad bowl lettuces, and some cress, Japanese mitsuba and carrot, spinach and radish seedlings just coming up.

Mesclun from transplants I grew under lights indoors. It made it through two deep snows and freezes.

So beautiful. I wonder why the rabbits aren't bothering it. We see wild rabbits in the yard every day, and so far, I haven't seen any trace of them in the garden.

Under the bushes all around the backyard is this shade-loving vinca groundcover.

Red tulips pop up here and there. I wonder how long ago they were planted. It's been so long since anyone took care of this yard. We did find a long-handled bulb planter under all the leaf debris last summer.

Peony buds ready to open.

May 1 is Mary's Day

This morning there was a May Crowning at school, to celebrate the feast of Mary the Mother of God and the beginning of her month. There is a procession with Mary's statue, and hymns and chanting. Inside the church, there is a Rosary and Marian hymns and the ceremony of the crowning. Kindergarteners and eighth graders traditionally process in together, after the rest of the school. They are each given a rose to place at Mary's feet inside the church. Eighth graders wear their dressiest clothes and take a class portrait, and kindergarteners wear their Dress uniforms.

R was almost at the end of the line.

Look at the knees of her tights! There must have been an incident at morning recess.

The eyes on the far right belong to her best little friend Joe. It's funny to think how those big boys in suits will be the peewees next year when they start high school. It's all in the perspective.

The principal talked about the eighth graders who are just about to graduate, and remembered his own daughter walking down the center aisle of the church as a kindergartener with her own eighth grade escort, 23 years ago. He had to stop for a second. I think he was about to cry.

It was a beautiful ceremony on a cold, overcast day. I didn't take any pictures inside the church because I'm still shy about that, unless it's a wedding or a Baptism. But it was sweet to see the little heads and big heads alternating in the first pews.

Happy Friday

Seedling Update

It's been awhile since I updated the progress in the guest-bedroom seedling room.

The frost-hardy plants that were big enough have gone outside to the raised beds. There are containers on the porch with more cold-tolerant plants. The tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers are getting big. I hope I can manage to keep them happy inside until late May.

I think the pole beans are probably going to get too big before it's warm enough for them to go in the ground, so I will either have to rig up some kind of cold frame, or consider them a loss. R has had fun to watching how fast they get so big, so it's not a total loss.

In the foreground, lemon basil, purple basil, asters and Charentais melons. In the background, summer savory, lavender, Aunt Ruby German Green and Brandywine heirloom tomatoes, and Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes.

The tomatoes are beyond ready to go into bigger pots. I have to do that soon.

Lemon cucumbers, sugar baby watermelons, beans in the back and regular bush cucumbers on the right.

Even the windowsill has been annexed for cilantro.

I am embarrassed to admit, there is actually a corner of the basement with seedlings. Mammoth and Teddy bear sunflowers, salad greens and some flowers.