Front yard, circa 2002

I’ve gardened for years, but most of my gardening experience has been with ornamental (as opposed to edible) plants.  When we moved into our house in 2002, we knew the yard needed a lot of work.  We had no idea that we’d do the level of transformation that we have done.  Take, for example, the front yard.  Originally, there was an odd, curved retaining wall heavily planted with juniper.  Beyond the wall, the yard dropped down to a fairly large slanted patch of grass and weeds that was totally useless.  Well, that had to change.

Front yard, terraced and fully planted

So it did change.  A few years ago we moved the retaining wall and then  filled in and terraced the sloped lawn area. We planted a variety of shrubs (including lilac), ornamental perennials (mostly flowering, including lots of primulas), perennial herbs (including lavender and rosemary), as well as lots of alpine strawberries.  The whole area makes a whole lot more sense now and we get a lot of use out of the space, something that wouldn’t have happened with the old layout. I thought it would be fun to share before and after pictures so this will be the first in a series that I’ll do from time to time.  

Switching gears, it sure is great that we’re now able to regularly harvest from our garden.  The spring crops are in full swing and we’ve been adding home-grown food to our meals as much as possible.  Here are some of the things we’ve been eating:

• Last night Derek made an awesome lasagna with fresh chard and basil from the garden.
• We have lot of salad greens growing and have salad with almost every dinner now.
• The kids keep harvesting the carrots, even though they are still a bit small.  This is why I planted lots of carrots.
• I’ve been nibbling on radishes now and then, mostly while I am working out in the garden.
• Every pea pod that matures is swiftly eaten by the kids.  Good thing we’ve got a giant crop about ready to mature.

Many other plants are on the verge of maturing so we’ll have a lot of new foods to weave in to our meals as the season goes on.  I hope everyone has enjoyed these last two amazingly beautiful weekends.

Sandy