Monday, January 24, 2011

Spring dreams

Hello everyone! What a beautiful day. Wait for it....it wasn't raining here in Oregon. Can you believe it?  I was walking through my property and thinking of everything I was going to do to it. This year is my big planning year. Last year we were ridding ourself of toxic things in the yard, building the retaining wall and replaced 150 feet of back fence. And you better believe we recycled everything we could and saved all the wood for kindling. 
This is in side my new green house. My husband built a foundation for it and it's used for storage while not in use for gardening.  Everything but the two wheel barrels & tomato cages were from my grandmother's house. I will be putting all of it to use this year.  



This is my garden space.  I have a small retaining wall to the left that maybe or maybe not my raspberries survived the winter. Also have a snowball tree (don't know the name of it) that i'm hoping survived. My husband built that cute green fence when we first moved in to keep the dog out. My hammock will be moved out of there to make room for lots of flower beds. The garden tables will be moved along my house to the right in the picture. What you cannot see is the  3 bin compost system which is right behind the green house. 
 This is my big plan area. I will be hanging cattle fencing from my eaves so my pea's and green beans can grow up them. Should give my bedroom window lots of shade which we really need. The sun beats down on this side of my house all summer long. I can now open up my window and let the cool air in. Think I will put my hammock here too.
 This is the back corner of my property. It's also the beginning part of our retaining wall. We had to cut that tree half way down last year because we were afraid it would fall on our neighbors property. We decided to keep it so our girls can have some shade. They love taking wood scraps and making forts up in that area. 
 I love this little area.  What you see are lemon balm and peppermint plants that I cut down last fall.  They soon will start to grow really tall. I pick the leaves, dehydrate them and use them for tea. This year I plan on growing lettuce in front of them and maybe something behind them. Utilize my space as much as possible.
 Light green bin is for recycling,  red bin is for recycling glass, dark green bin is for yard debris, brown bin is the garbage bin and the black bin is my compost.  We run a tight ship here. Reduce our recycling by not buying any packaging, compost everything possible, and throw away very little. We also share our bins with our neighbor Christy.  Basically these bins are for 10 people. Great way to save some money.
And this is my lovely little bird I found at Goodwill. It catches water in it's mouth and the plant can live with less watering by me.  Come on how adorable is it? 

4 comments:

Unknown said...

So envious! It is -38 C in Ottawa today. At least you are giving me hope that this will end at some point and gardening will begin before we know it.

Patty said...

Is the 'snowball tree' a sweetgum? Does it ahve the spikey balls it drops? Maybe not but we have a Sweetgum and throught maybe thats what you are looking at.
Great ways to utilize spaces and resources! Good luck.

Surviving and thriving on pennies said...

Patty-No there are no spiky balls. These are flower balls. Just looks like white snow balls all over it. Beautiful! I should try to find out what it is....Once it blooms I will share the photo's with everyone.

A neighbor of ours has a sweetgum and really dislikes it because of all those spiky balls. I would dread them falling all over too to be honest. lol

Patty said...

Ahh, I see. I don't know then. We have the spikey balls all over the back yard. Luckily (and sadly) I already don't walk barefoot in the back there b/c of the dogs.